Stella’s Birds – A few false starts

As anyone who follows my adventures will know, I always expect to improvise and have any number of false starts.

This is Cording Stitch, which is a classic Mountmellick work stitch, so I wanted to include it. I enjoyed stitching it, but once the whole design was stitched, I had Reservations.

I stared for a while, and then decided that it wasn’t working in the context I was using it, somehow it looked too stiff, and the thread didn’t seem like the right colour.

Another false start was when I started the second vine leaf. I was planning originally to have a riot of different stitches across the whole design. I was happy with the first one, in Palestrina Knot Stitch, but I thought I’d try something else.

Wheatear Stitch is a pretty stitch, and it fits well within the textural theme of the design, but it’s too broad – however hard I tried – to deal with all the wiggles around the edge of the vine leaves. After some thought, I realised that keeping some consistency in the “background” – the branches, the leaves, the tendrils – would enable the birds to shine.

That insight helped me with the tendrils and the stems for the vine leaves, When I was first stitching them, I used different stitches, and different threads, and somehow the piece wasn’t hanging together. When I found a stranded cotton that matched the colour I used for the branches, and used that for the tendrils, and for the stems of the leaves and the grapes, that worked better.

The tendrils are now all in Coral Stitch, and the stems are a Feather Stitch variation. I’ve not been able to track it down, but it’s created a loose and pretty plaited effect that I’m very pleased with!