I’m really enjoying stitching these postcards from Featherstitch House. The designs come out weekly though I’m taking a little longer than that at the moment! I think I need to take a day just prepping a few backgrounds and choosing fabrics as I tend to embroider these on an evening sitting on the settee.

Three weeks ago I’d finished my wren and I’d started stitching a bee…

I’d already stitched the background of flowers on a honey coloured background. The bee is stitched on the black(ish) background which does help getting the density of colour. Once the stitching is finished it’s then cut out and appliqued on. Rachel, the designer, stitched the legs at this point too but they did prove fiddly to then cut out and turn under so I decided to just applique the body and then add the legs once it was stitched on the background.

The legs were high-lighted with a mid beige colour, mine looked too light so rather than undo them I just touched them up with a finepoint pen!

The wings were stitched on organza with a back-stitch all the way round which was then overstitched so it could be cut out and delicately stitched on.

My finished bee…

The next postcard I wanted to stitch was one from February, a winter hare gazing at the moon. I was planning to do this last before the bee but I had a disaster with the background! The background uses a little batik to get the dark sky. First job was to melt a candle very carefully in the microwave. I tried with the stump of a ‘proper’ candle but despite quite a few minutes zapping, it wouldn’t melt! I tried a cheap tea light and it started to melt almost immediately!! Once it was all melted I used a paint brush to flick the hot wax onto the white backing fabric. I’d chosen quite a thick cotton, possibly metis, I think with hindsight this was a mistake. Once dry it was then meant to be painted with watercolours, the wax would resist the paint and therefore leave ‘stars’. I couldn’t find my watercolours (still not found!) so I used silk paints instead. Apart from the fact that I wasn’t really happy with my sky, the batik didn’t work. I think because the fabric was thick, the wax stayed on the surface but the silk paints went through and behind the wax.

Take 2!!

I bought some more watercolours, chose a thinner cotton and tried again. The sky looked amazing when it was wet, a dark winters night with a touch of Northern Lights. I was a tad disappointed how much it lightened and murkied when it dried but I wasn’t going to try again, it would suffice. You can see on this first photo with the wide border what it looked like…

The snow is needle-turn appliqued on, the hare and the moon are attached using bondaweb. I used a scrap of metis for the moon as I wanted a heavier cotton so the dark background wouldn’t show through, the bondaweb also helped a bit in adding another layer.

Once the basic shapes were on the stitching bega. The sky and the moon were covered in Kantha stitch. This is an Indian technique which just uses running stitch to create patterns and texture. It can be very neat and regular or free flowing like this one.

I’ve not really done much Kantha before, I was amazed the difference it made to the sky. I was going to use a variegated DMC thread but at the last minute I thought of my machine embroidery threads, in my box I had a dark blue with touches of purple and teal, it was also a little finer than the DMC. It was perfect! It has darkened the sky beautifully whilst blending in to the background. I just stitched lots of wavy lines, it took a while but I love the sky now. The moon is stitched with DMCwith simple circles.

The embroidery on the hare is kept simple with just a back-stitch edge. I’ve just his whiskers to add. Lastly I’ve to stitch some grasses and seed heads in the foreground and another postcard will be finished.

I think I might do some foxgloves next, though there’s a lovely sea scene too and a blackberry one which looks good!

Please check out what everyone else has been stitching over the last three weeks

Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen