{"id":16291,"date":"2026-02-10T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=16291"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:01:08","slug":"a-few-false-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2026\/02\/10\/a-few-false-starts\/","title":{"rendered":"Stella’s Birds – A few false starts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Cording<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As anyone who follows my adventures will know, I always expect to improvise and have any number of false starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"False<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"False<\/a>
Cable Chain Stitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"False<\/a>
Stem Stitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Much<\/a>
Feather Stitch variation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… Continue Reading Stella’s Birds – A few false starts<\/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":[272,25,271,281,14,270,22],"class_list":["post-16291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-designing","tag-experiments","tag-gentian-hill","tag-mountmellick-work","tag-ornamental-stitches","tag-stellas-birds","tag-stitches","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291","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=16291"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16295,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291\/revisions\/16295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}