At the October Craft and Quilt Fare in Adelaide I had resisted the temptation to buy one of the owl panels that Dijanne Cevaal had available. A friend urged me to buy, but as I had four untouched panels at home I resisted.
That was before I conceived of my 'guardians' theme.
Niamh likes owls. Owls too, have, in literature, performed the role of guardians of humans.
I contacted Dijanne and bought a panel.
I figured this is a mystical owl so chose red/gold colours to reflect that. I still had some of the lovely red/gold over-dyed stranded, as well as some lovely red silks.
I tried a range of stitches on the wings and breast, trying to get a notion of feathers. I did a couple of rows in colcha stitch. On the breast I used long single chain stitches, double in some places to get coverage.
I went looking for beads for the head- flat, round ones to go in those circles. The ones I found were a little yellower than I was looking for, but I went with them anyway.
I found some owl-coloured ones that I decided to use for the wing tips.
Amongst my cache of broken jewellery I had a pair of earrings that were perfect for the eyes. I stitched the surround in red metallic and attached the silver disc with (I confess!) super-glue.
The beak is a shell from an odd earring.
I used midnight purple for the background and a straw-coloured silk for the feet - to pick up the gold in the head.
I chose the batik (again from Chrissy at Batik Fabrics Online - superfast pre-Christmas service) to suggest trees. I wanted the owl to seem to be emerging from the greenery, so did not put a border on this one.
I'm very pleased I relented and sent for this one. It turned out better than I had dared hope.
1 comment:
Well, maybe it is wrong to pick a favourite, but this is mine. The contrasting embroidery works so well on this one. And I love all the textures with the embellishments! And the green, and the owl... yes, love it. :D
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