Embroidery needs patience and attention to detail – meaning that often, very little appears to have been completed over the course of an afternoon or even day. Usually I don’t mind, but today I wanted a more instant fix. I have had a number of polystyrene hearts on the top of my wardrobe for ages – so decided to make use of at least one of them. I am planning to make a simple wreath for a crafty swap. This afternoon I covered the heart in a lovely felted wool. So far, so good. The next stage is to make a felted bird to hang from the centre, rather like the ones I completed at a workshop by Gillian Chapman . I have also seen some tutorials to make simple felted flowers – which I think I could manage.
I did attempt a little crewel work today – putting in several rows of fly stitch for the birds tail – not sure if I like them though as they look very flat.
I also started to tackle the gaps between the birds feet – initially I thought I could leave spaces for the bullion stitches (which I intend to use for the birds claws) – but this is just so fiddly. So out came the stitches and I will now sew right across the branch and put the bullion stitches over the top. 1 stop forwards, 2 steps back!
Happy stitching!
sweetfallenangels 
These are nice bits of work. I Like what I can see of the bird’s tail, as the different colours and the stitches give it texture. But maybe it looks flat in contrast to the rest of it, which I can’t see. How did you get involved with a craft swap?
Did a Christmas craft swap with INSTAGRAM group – and another happened to pop up – so I thought I would do one more!
Ah… I think I miss out on a few things by not being on Instagram. Maybe I’ll just have to set up my own craft swap on the blog and see who fancies joining in!
What a good idea – mind you they sound quite a lot of work!
The Christmas swap was also on a webpage by Sewchet.
I did the Christmas swap and loved it, so am on the look out for more!
The close up detail is fascinating and, for the record, I think the tail stitches are perfect:)
Thank you