For the next few weeks I’ll post some of the pieces I did for the Larks exhibition, and I’ll start with what is supposed to be the centrepiece of the show. One problem about most of my designs is that they’re pretty small, which is fine of course, but they don’t make much of an effect on a gallery wall. So I thought I’d do one big piece to act as the centre of the show.
For this I returned to an idea I tried several years ago – an aviary design made up of lots of different kinds of birds. This one consisted of 16 different stitched and appliqueed birds, not stitched together as a quilt would be, but rather stitched separately on a single big piece of fabric It sounds like a simple idea, but it was hugely demanding technically, and I honestly began to have nightmares about it. I could just imagine spending three weeks digitising and stitching it, only to make a fatal mistake on the last bird and wreck the whole thing
One major headache was that the video camera on the Innovis, which I used to align all the different designs, didn’t allow very accurate lining up of the different pieces. I digitised the birds with lots and lots of basted lines which were supposed to let me line up the different squares accurately, but it just didn’t work very well. You can see in this photo that many of the alignment lines aren’t in fact lined up.
Bad alignment – the lines of basting stitching are supposed to be lined up exactly
It's true that the alignment is only out by a couple of millimetres, but it all adds up when you're working on a big piece. I think the problem might be because the camera doesn’t have a very high degree of resolution, so you can’t see the lines clearly. However the whole thing eventually got done, and I found that by painting the fabric between the squares, most of the mistakes were hidden, and it didn’t turn out too badly
Hi Mia, I can’t imagine how many hours it took to stitch out this masterpiece, but it turned out awesome! Your birds are gorgeous and it is a spectacular piece! Thanks for sharing it with us!
Wow this is fantastic Mia. Love your free designs they are lovely.
According to my opinion, your work does not have even a tiny mistake. All is how it should be! Gorgeous piece of work! No idea how many hours, days, weeks … this took to finish….
I can imagine to have it in our children’s room, just next to the big painted tree on the wall. Only in this case, I would switch the background to the brown colors :o)
Thank you for your sharing and possibility to think about embroidering in a different way than usual.
Lenka
This is stunning! I’m especially in love with that little chickadee. Glad you were able to take care of any mistakes (learning opportunities) as it does not even give a hint of such in the final piece. And I love the backgrounds too, how they give variety and interest to the piece. The colors are so well balanced. This sure is spectacular. Congratulations!
You are too hard on yourself. It is a stunning piece of art work. Your love of what you are making and your attention to detail shines through. Can’t wait to see other pieces surrounding it. You did choose a show stopper as your center piece.
Thank you so much for sharing. You are more of an inspiration than you know! Your willingness to share your struggles and efforts to overcome them gives me the needed confidence to keep trying. this is beautiful.
Mia, lovely piece and you are the only one that knows its didn’t line up as you wanted. You certainly can’t tell it by the completed piece. Love all the different birds. Just wondering is the dove the same one that you gave away last year? I stitched it out and it stitched out beautifully as everything I have stitched from you does.
Wow! Love your birds. This piece must have taken hours. Just beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful piece! Getting every tiny thing lined up is really hard, no matter what machine you’re working on. But you did great and your painting solution really added to the piece.
I look forward to seeing more of what you submitted!
I know you received a multitude of compliments on your work. It is so unique and detailed. Thank you for sharing.
Jane
These birds are so beautiful!