Stella’s Birds – continuing the basics

I wanted to raise the level of the grapes as they came forward – remember, part of the inspiration for this piece is carved wood, so I need to be channelling Grinling Gibbons! – so each set as I worked down the panel is more emphatic. Cretan stitch in a slightly greeny fawn at the top, chain stitch spirals in a more pinky fawn at the middle. And double padded satin stitch in a creamy colour at the bottom, light, reflective, strongly raised.

Yes, that works.

So, now I have my structure in place, it’s worth pausing to look at it.

The branches run through, knitting everything together. The leaves have a little variation in colour, but using the same stitches has kept them quite calm in spite of the strong texture. And the grapes becoming stronger and more emphatic helps to create the sense of a flow through the piece.

Time now to plan the birds a little more.

I started with a Caron Collection “Watercolours” that I’ve had for years. That will appear in all of the birds, giving the design some unity. Notionally, of course, in terms of the original inspiration from the novel “Gentian Hill”, it’s the same bird, an analogy for the soul of a person, but I want to play a bit more with pattern and form, so the birds informally known as Bitey, Stabby, and Shouty are quite different from one another. There are pinks, yellows, and blues in the “Watercolours” thread, so I’ve picked a pearl cotton and a soft cotton in each to go together to form the central part of the birds. Other threads to be added if I feel I need them…