A little embroidered bird

I finished a little embroidered bird this morning, and overall was pretty pleased with it. I'd tried to cover all of the calico with stitching, and in particular to get the markings on the head and the eye position correct.

This started out as calico with a pencil drawing of a bird's outline drawn on it. I didn't want the threads to be all one shade of blue, one shade of yellow, one shade of green and so on. Instead I used a mix of colours to add interest to the body and wing.

It definitely helps to have this in a hoop. There's a little puckering with the calico, but not much.

When I finished the embroidery I took the material out of the hoop, selected my pale blue felt for the backing, then put them both into the hoop, the embroidery face down on the felt. Then I sewed around the bird's outline, leaving a gap of about two inches so I could turn the blue tit right side out.

I inserted light padding in the form of fabric scraps, then sewed up the gap and added a loop of ribbon. All done! The bird's about four and a half inches from top of the head to end of the tail, and the only real flaw that bothers me is the beak kind of disappeared when the backing was sewn on. Next time, if I make this blue tit again, I'll either make the head a slightly different design so the beak's more noticeable, or cut out a beak from black or grey felt and sew that on instead.

Not sure what type of bird to try next. Any suggestions?

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