{"id":16173,"date":"2025-11-04T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=16173"},"modified":"2025-10-21T19:57:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:57:21","slug":"back-to-stellas-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/04\/back-to-stellas-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Back To Stella&#8217;s Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird1_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"904\" data-id=\"16153\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird1_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"Rather mad, vaguely medieval inspired bird in coloured chalk.\" class=\"wp-image-16153\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird1_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird1_Watermarked-265x300.jpg 265w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird1_Watermarked-768x868.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird3_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"844\" data-id=\"16155\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird3_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird3_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird3_Watermarked-284x300.jpg 284w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird3_Watermarked-768x810.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"766\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"16156\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked-766x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16156\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked-766x1024.jpg 766w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked-224x300.jpg 224w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked-768x1027.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bird2_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 766px) 100vw, 766px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The design inspired by Elizabeth Goudge&#8217;s &#8220;Gentian Hill&#8221; is continuing to give me some difficulties. The stitchery itself will be inspired by Mountmellick work, although it&#8217;s not going to be anything even close to classical Mountmellick. You didn&#8217;t think it would, did you?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/branch_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/branch_Watermarked-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"Branch to support the birds. Not quite right\" class=\"wp-image-16154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/branch_Watermarked-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/branch_Watermarked-768x564.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/branch_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I was planning to use a vaguely medieval flavour for the birds, so they&#8217;ll be a bit mad, all curlicues and twiddles. The ones above are looking promising, I think. I will need to consider balancing solid stitching and line stitching, but that can wait until the design itself is settled. Keeping them mad once I start stitching may be a bit of a challenge, but we&#8217;ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"212\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked-212x300.jpg\" alt=\"Another attempt at Stella's Birds, this time in fibre tip\" class=\"wp-image-16167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked-722x1024.jpg 722w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked-768x1089.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EarlyEffort_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The branches they&#8217;ll be sitting on are worse. I&#8217;ve been trying two different styles &#8211; a rectangular design, and a triangular design. Both of them look a bit clumsy, and they&#8217;re somehow unsatisfying. Granted, neither of them is the whole design, the rectangular one is lacking the birds, and the triangular one is lacking curlicues and any sense of spacing. I&#8217;ll get there in the end, but it&#8217;s going to take a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I am pleased with is that I&#8217;m getting better at doing scrappy, fast, thinking-with-a-pen drawings. Even a year ago, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;d have had the freedom I felt as I was doing these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which is just to tell you, it&#8217;s never too late to start on drawing &#8211; or any other skill!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The design inspired by Elizabeth Goudge&#8217;s &#8220;Gentian Hill&#8221; is continuing to give me some difficulties. The stitchery itself will be inspired by Mountmellick work, although it&#8217;s not going to be anything even close to classical Mountmellick. You didn&#8217;t think it would, did you? I was planning to use a vaguely medieval flavour for the birds,&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/04\/back-to-stellas-birds\/\">Continue Reading Back To Stella&#8217;s Birds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[272,271,281,270,22],"class_list":["post-16173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-designing","tag-gentian-hill","tag-mountmellick-work","tag-stellas-birds","tag-stitches","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16173"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16190,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions\/16190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}