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.