Red Robin Panel 6: Rain May Glisten

I am currently in the England, in the Lakes District, to attend the Spring Residential with The Crewelwork Company. I have set up a travel blog where I will be writing about the Residential. Interested readers are welcome to visit the travel blog.

In the wake of the reverse applique work of the African Tribal Inspired workshop from the Embroiderers' Guild Summer School, I thought I'd have a go at reverse appliqueing a robin. I tried it with a male bird which has simpler whole colours rather than the varied browns of the female.
I began by adding a layer of black cotton to the back of a panel. It was already backed in white sheeting, so that became the middle layer

The red layer I inserted from the front after cutting out the whole of the basic robin shape. It required rather a lot of pins to hold the layers in place and to catch on my thread as I stitched - but it worked.














I could then embroider the bird with feathery stitches and add some greenery. This time I decided on a flowering gum.




The size of the robin, is, of course, out of proportion to the leaves. This might be a pre-historic giant ancestor of the modern Scarlet Robin.

I used Ghiordes knots for the blossom.














 
For the glistening rain I found a metallic in pale, watery colours. Here is the singer of the song, sitting under her umbrella listening 'for hours and hours'.

The metallic doesn't show up well in photographs - but it does glisten!

Here's the total panel. You can see that the central robin panel is smaller for this one than most of the others. This is just the way it came from the Guild and will make, I think, the finished quilt quite interesting.