Liberty Bird (part two)

Often the reason I stop working on something is because I'm not sure how to continue with a piece and I'm pretty sure this was the case with this project. But when I pulled this Tufted Titmouse  embroidery from the WIP basket I suddenly *knew* I had to add some stitching to the background.

I'm using colours that are similar to the colours used in the fabric design but generally they are more bold and I'm adding some variety in the shades as well. From afar the stitching on the background isn't immediately obvious but up close it's really nice. :)

Liberty Bird

Last week I wrote about my plans of stitching a Tiny Tufted Titmouse. Making these animal portraits is a bit like a treat to me, there's no pressure and no deadline and no writing down of colours and stitches and not much of a plan either...

Anyway,  I suddenly thought it might be fun to stitch it on a really pretty, flowery fabric. Lately I have only used cotton satin fabric for my tiny animal portraits. Cotton Satin is a medium weight fabric with a close weave and perfect for embroideries with lots of tiny stitches. Then I found this scrap of gorgeous Liberty Fabric in my stash which is really is not very suitable for my type of stitching at all. The fabric is quite thin and I can hardly see what I'm doing with that busy print but the embroidery is turning out rather charming so far. I really like how the bird seems to emerge from the flowers. Now I'm tempted to do more of these 'Liberty' birds after I have finished this one!

Tiny Bird Sketch

This morning I finished a project that had I had been working on since January. Well I finished the embroidery part of the project, not all of the 'what-stitch-goes-where-in-what -colour-writing-down' bit. So with that nearly done I feel it's legitimate to start thinking about my next Tiny Animal Portrait.

Quite a while ago I decided it would be a bird and I got some fabulous suggestions here on the blog as to what bird exactly it should be. I'm pretty sure I will start with this bird, the Tufted Titmouse. I made a quick sketch just now and I think he'll look fabulous in stitches!