Embellishing

A friend that recently visited, commented on this embroidered bird I have hanging on the wall of our living room. She had said she had seen a bird like this the other day. I get a lot of good ideas for color and detail in watching the birds at our feeder. This is how I came to stitch this piece. We have little birds that look like they are wearing bicycle helmets. They are so cute. Sometimes I will draw a bird to stitch, but I have come to love Aunt Martha's hot iron transfers for the outline shape in the pattern. I have several patterns I have collected over the years, and one of these is the pattern set called "Birds Galore" which has several birds including the Cardinal in it. So I hand trace the outline of the design on to my fabric, and then I use the stitches I love to embellish and add a few things to make the pattern come to life.

This is the bird I chose to look like the one at our feeder

Hours of time, and thousands of stitches. As you can see, I added extra flower clusters, ripples in the wood fence and grass underneath the fence. I have learned that if you right click onto the picture with your mouse, you can see the detailed stitches better.




I actually took my floss outside and laid against on of our trees and flowers to get the true color for this piece. I tried it on the bird, but he would not stay still! {: I think I might do a cardinal next because we have one that has been coming up to eat the past few days. Do any of you have a favorite bird?