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Another finish, based on a kit by Laurelin embroidery - she very kindly sold me the pattern only, and I worked the bird much smaller (about 7.5cm/3"), using Madeira Lana instead of crewel wool

What a beauty!
I especially love the look of its tail and the little leaf.

The tail is long & short stitch, also known as silk shading even though it doesn't involve silk and the leaf is fishbone stitch worked in two colours. They are two of my favourite stitches!

Well now you have been busy

I love the Rabbit and I absolutely love the shading in the flowers above him, they are fantastic Mabel.

Does Laurelin Bird have a name? He looks most proud with his chest all puffed up and that tail is gorgeous.

Well done never seems enough for your beautiful projects Mabel.

Lizzie Pye at Laurelin just calls him "Jacobean little bird", so we could call him Jacob

The shading on this is fabulous

I love this bird ! What a splendid fellow

Love the Rabbit one, he looks so real. The bird one is beautiful too in all his colours. Lovely to see your work again Mable.

Don’t know how I missed this one! It is beautiful!

Carole

Jacob is very handsome, and the rabbit continues to look slightly startled beneath the enormous flower (I suspect it's meant to be a dianthus, but as it's blue, I see it as a cornflower). But the question I have is this: what stitches have you used for the flower bases? They are very effective.

The green bits right below the petals? One is Bayeux stitch (on the pink flower) and one is burden stitch (on the purple one)

Here they are in close-up:

Your work is gorgeous!

thanks, Mabel. I'll have to learn burden stitch. Looks like a sort of gobelin? The Bayeux stitch had me foxed as you have pulled it in a bit, perhaps? Very striking.

Serinde, burden stitch is worked over a foundation of parallel stitches (spaced apart likethe rungs on a ladder) with short perpendicular stitches going up just after one, over the next, down just before the third (does that make sense?) and they are "bricked" (off-set).

For the Bayeux stitch I didn't intentionally pull it, I don't think The bottom layer is surface satin stitch (or laid stitch) in light green, going vertically; then the couching lines in medium green, horizontally; then the little couching stitches in dark green, again vertically, and bricked.
Because the light and medium green are quite close, from some angles the long couching stitches seem to blend in with the background, perhaps that is what caused the confusion?

Your work is so beautiful. TFS

I have been trying to reply for 2 days and something weird happened each time....it asked me to download something...?

Anyway, Mabel, your bunny and birds are fabulous, just perfect and beautiful.

Mabel Figworthy wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:57 am The bottom layer is surface satin stitch (or laid stitch) in light green, going vertically; then the couching lines in medium green, horizontally; then the little couching stitches in dark green, again vertically, and bricked.

You put a bottom layer in your Bayeux stitch? Goodness! No wonder it looks very full. I used quite a bit of Bayeux stitch on James Watt (along with Romanian stitch) which solved the stitching problem of covering a large area quickly.

Uhm, doesn't all Bayeux stitch have a bottom layer? I don't mean padding - layer 1 is fully covered, layer 2 is long, ladder-spaced couching lines, layer 3 is the teeny-weeny couching stitches.

Maybe I'm getting confused (always possible). Layer 1 covers the shape; layer 2 is the single thread laid in the opposite angle (horizontal or vertical, depending on layer 1), then the couching stitches on the laid thread. Which is obviously what you've done... but what is that colour underneath your first layer? Maybe I'm mistaking that for a padding?