Those antique birds – I just can’t stop stitching them! I wanted to introduce you to my newest feathered friend, this little one, surrounded by a magnificent wreath of flowers. I think it’s a cardinal – but perhaps the original stitcher took some license with the colouring – what do you think?
I’ve been collecting antique woolwork pieces of birds for some time now, and I adore their abundant use of colour. That being said, this one took a little bit of work to wrangle it into shape. Here, let me show you the antique original, so you can see what I mean.
It may be a little difficult to see in the picture, but several of the flowers were beaded, and some used metallic beads, which have rusted over time, leaving it impossible to know what their original colours were. Even the woolwork palette was unusually wide, so I needed to make this an adaptation, rather than a strict reproduction.
There are choices when it comes to doing an antique reproduction – do we choose to make an exact copy of the original, and do we make a copy of the work as it has aged, or the often very different colours the first stitcher used, visible on the back? Or do we adapt the piece – honouring the original stitcher’s creativity and choices, while making it work for contemporary tastes (and budgets!)? I’ve taken the latter view with this piece, reducing the colour palette to something a little more reasonable, and harmonising the design by replacing the beads with colours used elsewhere in the piece.
It is my view that the antiques we love to learn from are resources and inspiration, and I make artistic choices in how I choose to reproduce them. In fact, you then make artistic choices in how you choose to stitch them as well. I love this sense of shared creativity, and I can’t wait to see how you choose to stitch this little one…
The design has a stitch count of 78w x 90h and only uses full crosses over 2. As such, it’s suitable to stitch on linen, Aida or evenweave; or stitch in wools as needlepoint; or to fully bead, if that’s your jam! My model was stitched 2 over 2, on 32-count “Russian Caramel” by Number12StitchCo on Etsy (a delicious rich caramel – it’s darker in person than in the pics), which echoed the gold background of the antique.
I stitched the model in a mixture of Weeks Dye Works, Gentle Arts and Classic Colorworks floss, and I have included a full DMC conversion. As there are still quite a lot of colours, I recommend using what overdyes you may have in stash, and subbing in DMC for the rest. Many of the colours are used in small amounts, so you don’t need to purchase all the overdyes to stitch the piece beautifully. I’ve included a downloadable threadlist below that includes the number of stitches in each colour, so you can choose which overdyes will be best value for you (as a rule of thumb, I always tend to go for the greens in the foliage – they’re often the heaviest used and you get a lot of impact for them).
I’m wishing you much happy bird stitching as you add this to your flock! You can find the hard-copy chart and the PDF available in my Etsy store.
Mojo Stitches 