Bis Sis’s Wip 5

Finished at last.

Pretty parrot 2

This was how I left my work bench last night having stitched the two wired leaves and the wired wing. I wasn’t happy with the shading on the wing so I’ll be stitching another one today and I’ve added a extra shade or two which I may or may not use.

2 ongoing wips

This is the bird box yet to be (or not to be). I should have made the interior cardboard box first and then made the fabric outer to size but I frequently do things the hard way and will now have to take the knife to interior box #1 and make it a tad smaller or start again. Embroidered felt birds lightly stuffed with silk fibres from an old quilt. Felt backing. French knots surrounding.

I succeeded in finding a copy of Sachiko Morimoto’s Stumpwork Flowers at my local library last Thursday and by Friday I thought that rather than just drool over the beautiful photographs of her work I should have a go at actually stitching one. Then I decided it might be nice to work through the book so I’ve ordered myself a copy! (All the reviews I’ve read for this book are correct – it’s fabulous and a must-have for anyone who likes to stitch!)
Starting with the first project, Clover, this is what I did yesterday evening. I’ve been buying embroidery threads for over forty years and have an abundant supply of colours so I was surprised when I couldn’t match any of the greens in my boxes to those on Sachiko’s list and since I don’t possess a DMC or Anchor colour chart I’m just going to choose the colours I think closely match what I can see in the photographs – as if some of these projects weren’t challenging enough!

out of luck today

Today I went to see what my local quilting shop could offer me in the way of threads. When I got to the front door there was sign saying the shop was closed until next week because of a quilt show in the Midlands. I wouldn’t have minded so much but it’s been tipping it down with rain most of the day and I got soaked on the way home.

At dinner time I couldn’t get the rice cooker to turn on. Changing the fuse in the plug and trying another socket didn’t help. We’ve had the rice cooker for nearly sixteen years. It will be sadly missed. RIP.

I needed to crush garlic for our meal but the garlic crusher insert looked like this when I took it from the drawer:

I’ve straightened it out now but how did it get twisted out of shape in the first place?