Two little birds

After stitching out what seemed like hundreds of goldfish
and really liking the effect that several layers of overstitching gave to the
designs, I’ve been trying to find other ways of using the overstitching technique.
At the moment we have flocks of little birds at our bird feeders so I thought I’d
try some detailed bird designs in a semi-realistic style. So I’m working on a
four-part design with a wren, a goldcrest, a coal tit and a (British) robin.
Here are the wren and the goldcrest

 Wren

Goldcrest

They’re sort of OK but for some reason they haven’t turned
out quite as nicely as the goldfish, and I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it has to
do with the fact that goldfish are smooth and shiny, so the overstitching gives
them a clear definition and dimension. The birds, on the other hand, are fluffy
and feathery, with less defined shapes, so the effect of the overstitching
tends to get lost in the depth of all those feathers.They're also a lot more complicated than the fish, so there's more that can go wrong with them. Never mind – they’re
still appealing and I’ll continue with the series