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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Winter birds progress

I have now finished one side of the Winter Birds table topper. The pattern is repeated on all four sides.
I settled on satin stitch for the big leaves and couched straight stitch for the pine-needles, but wasn't happy with either the satin stitch or the lattice I had experimented with for the snow.

My next step was to try split back stitch. I was much happier with this than with the satin stitch.

Although I left my earlier experiments with the leaves and with the snow lattice in place, like a sampler, I thought the satin stitch snow so horrible I pulled it out.

I replaced it with split back stitch going horizontally, rather than vertically - and liked that one best of all.

I am going to leave the lattice example and the vertical one in - treat it as a sampler. I might try a double layer of satin stitch in the next quarter - horizontal over vertical perhaps.




I also worked the breasts of the birds in split back stitch, but the wings in satin stitch.


I have a few more variations in mind to try on the other three sides!


3 comments:

Monica said...

It's looking very nice! It's quite cheerful, isn't it?

I think the split back stitch was a very good solution. It has a very appropriate texture.

Jillian said...

Thanks, Monica. The blocks are too big to get a smooth satin stitch cover in the thread - for me anyway!

margaret said...

this is coming along well Judith the birds look very happy and the split stitch has worked well