I keep a file of interesting designs and shapes and colours which I often use as inspiration for new designs, and one of these images is of these little Art Deco bookends.
Original Art Deco
I love Art Deco style, so when my friend Cherri asked me to produce some designs to be used on bags, I immediately thought of this little piece. The "theme" of the bags was to be birds, animals and flowers, and here were a couple of little birds just waiting to be used
So I turned the little sculptures into a pair of birds, together with some flowers, but they were of course looking away from each other, and somehow that didn't really work. The composition was OK but it just didn't "feel" right.
Art Deco embroidery version 1
So I turned them around, and that was better, but all the same it didn't really hang together as a composition – probably because of that big gap in the middle.
Art Deco version 2
So I filled the gap up with flowers, and it was a lot better.
Art Deco version 3
I'm not saying that it couldn't be improved further, but it was fine the way it was, so this was the final version
By the way, these pictures aren't real stitchouts – they're images that are lifted straight from the digitising software, which is why you can't see the appliqué fabric that would normally make up the bodies of the birds. I know I'm lazy to be using this cheat's shortcut way of making images, but I really couldn't face stitching this out three times!
I really like the third one . I sure understand you wanting to use your software.
I like screen shots from the software, especially when trying out alternatives.
Thank you for sharing how your design evolved! I agree with you and like the 3rd best, too.
Hi Mia, thanks for sharing your process on how to change a design that doesn’t look quite right. I agree, I think your third idea of lengthening and intertwining the flowers between the two birds really creates a connection between the birds that was lacking in the other two.