Stella’s Birds – Shouty Bird
Shouty started off with basic herringbone stitch in the variegated thread. I do like the way the colours are shading here, but to be honest, I really didn’t think hard enough about the next few stages!
That’s been a bit of a theme with Stella’s Birds, there have been false starts and missteps galore, but I don’t mind too much. I am still learning to visualise the elements I want, and I don’t always see them clearly. Once I’ve stitched them, it’s much easier!
I’ve been keeping to the strongly raised leading edge of the wing, and I’m happy with that. But I’m not happy with the bird’s body – it’s either too textured, or not textured enough – neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring, as my Grandad used to say.
Furthermore, the two central lines of the tail are too bright, too white, shouting too loudly, louder than the bird himself. And the crest is untidy and coming undone.
So a lot of it came out. I’ve knocked back the tail – a cream pearl cotton, rather than white. That was already better.
Then I went back to the variegated thread for the rest of the bird’s body, and I’ve left it unfilled – in the end, all the birds are mostly just outlined, with the odd point of detail.
The flight feathers are just simple lines of stitching, nothing too fancy, just enough. I like it much better now.
Yes, much improved at the end, and the variegated thread has a chance to sing without too many interruptions. I do like the spiky curls on the tail.
Another success – I love the gorgeous tail!
I came across a quote many years ago which I used in a piece of work about the importance of talk in learning – something like, “How can I know what I mean until see what I say?” (Just looked it up on the internet and apparently it was EM Forster!) And your process seems to capture that perfectly. Until the things in our head become real we can’t always tell whether they will actually work and allowing that to be OK is so powerful.
Your changes have greatly improved Shouty Bird. The void lets your eye focus on the charming permed top knot, the grandiose tail, the prominent wing and the variegated outline of the body, and see how the eye shines in the void!
Lovely.