The bird

About ten years ago, I got four prints of hand-painted bird panels from Laura Kemshall. I thought they were gorgeous, and the quality of the printing was incredible, but I couldn't figure out what to do with them. So they've been sitting around in a basket since that time.

The other night I was looking for an "easy" project, and I thought I'd pull them out.

I decided that looking through my stash of hand-dyed fabrics would be the likeliest place to start, prior attempts to work with the prints had been kiboshed because of my inability to find commercial prints that would work with them.

So I pulled out the stash, and had a fun ten minutes. You see, I haven't looked at these fabrics for over a year - I was feeling pretty meh about the last few batches I had made and I mostly hand-paint fabric for my work now, so when I pulled them out, I must have sounded like a crazy person to BSP.

"Oooh!"

"Check THIS out!"

"Omigod, that's gorgeous."

and laughing to myself. I'd be surprised I didn't end up in a looney bin, but BSP must be used to it by now. ;)

Anyway, for each of these prints I found a hand-dye that was so perfect, it was as if they were purpose made.

Yesterday, I showed you the machine stitching on the back of this bird. When I started stitching it, I thought I would machine stitch the entire thing and then go over it with hand stitch and beading as embellishment.

But having thought about it for 24 hours, I think the whole thing needs to be hand stitched.

So much for my "easy" project.

That bird is also itching to be covered with my hand painted feathers, isn't it?

We'll see...

Kit