The bird that's not gonna fly

It's been a mixed kind of day, from a crafty perspective. I'd seen on Instagram the collages of Clare Youngs. Including a length of bunting, several paper birds strung together, all vivid colours and eye catching shapes. I'll have a go at that, I thought, but in fabric rather than paper and card. Hmmm, didn't quite work. I cut out my simplified bird, trying to get it as close to the original design as I could. Added applique details for the wings, beak and eyes, and backed with green felt. But it didn't look right. I've not got the overall shape right after all. The whole thing doesn't 'read' as a bird in flight.

Oh well, you try these things and some succeed, some fail. Never mind, it's only fabric and sewing thread after all.

Having put aside my avian misfortune, I finished off a smaller version of the dragonfly slow stitching piece I made recently. Here are the two for a comparison in size.

I was thinking of attaching the smaller one to the front of a piece of folded card, so it could be used as a greetings card for a birthday or other occasion. By the way, I found the perfect way to hang the larger textile piece, using a glass straw looped between two fabric tabs. You can't really see from this photo, but the glass has a pink tinge to it, which is ideal.

The other things I've made lately were - forgive me for mentioning Christmas so early in the year - a couple of fabric gift tags, and a bee. Why a bee? Well - uhmm - because - oh, I don't know! I just fancied making a bee.

Honestly, hand on heart, can you say you've never had the urge to make a bee? Oh, come on!

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Taking a blog break ...

Hello! And goodbye, at least for now. The blog's on hold for a little while as I'm easing myself into 2026 gradually. I'm still stitching and reading and enjoying life with Badger the cat. Even though he treats my sofa like a giant scratching post!

Badger!

Here's Badger, looking like the little cutie-pie he is. He's settled in so well, is absurdly affectionate and eats anything and everything I put in his food bowl. The only fault I can find is that he likes to sharpen his claws on the side of my sofa. This is despite having two scratching posts, one of which is part of a cat tower that's taller than I am! I may have to try trimming his claws, but I don't know how Badger will react to that. Anyway, expect to see more photos of him, so sorry in advance for any of you who aren't feline fans. Apart from gazing in admiration at the cat I've continued to experiment with embroidery. I really can't decide whether this mainly pink piece of stitching is something I like or just a dog's dinner of a mess. This is another embroidery I've been stitching. Frankly, at the moment it looks like it should be lobbed straight into the bin. I'd painted with a mix of watercolour pa...

Final post for 2025 (I think. I mean, unless anything amazingly wonderful happens that I can't keep to myself any longer ...)

The days are marching by at record speed, and I've finally - possibly - bought all the presents I need to buy and written all the Christmas cards I need to send. I decided not to put up a full-sized tree this year as I'm convinced Badger the cat would simply view it as a climbing frame, and I'd find it toppled on a daily basis. Instead, there's a small green tree, and a simple white twiggy one that has lots of vintage baubles dangling from it. To be honest, I prefer the twiggy one, so the green tree might be permanently retired from now on. I've not gone crazy with the decorations, but there are various strings of fairy lights that look so pretty when they're lit. I have - between internet shopping and baking mince pies - made a little fishy pin cushion, decorated with seed stitches, French knots, chain stitch and stem stitch. I'm on the look-out for grey tweedy material to make another fish as I think that'd look better than plain ...

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