Friday 24 June 2011

This and That.

I have been doodling with the sewing machine onto the embellished knitted pieces I made recently. These are the first two I have done and I am rather disappointed with them.

The colours of both are greener than they appear here, and the machine stitching disappears into the background too easily - something I should probably have realised from the outset. I might try a bit of hand stitching to see if that looks better.



This little chaffinch has been a regular visitor to our garden for a couple of years now. We had noticed from the start that he didn't hop about as nimbly as the other birds but could never quite see why. I managed to get this photo of him the other day, and his disability is very apparent. He still flies well, comes to feed most days and seems to be none the worse for whatever it was that caused his deformed leg. There has been a younger chaffinch with him sometimes this year with a similar condition but I haven't been able to get a clear enough shot of it.
I've got one eye on the weather, and if I'm lucky I might just get an hour in the garden before it starts raining again.

Have a nice weekend - it's supposed to get warmer - I'm still waiting for that date with the garden chair!




10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Chaffinch, I wonder what caused that injury.

Maggi said...

I do like the texture that the machine stitching has created. Some hand stitching to add contrast would work well. Strange how two of the chaffinches have had disabilities.

Maggi said...

Re the chaffinch Heather, I have just found this
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/wildlife/ask/f/901/p/8992/64915.aspx

Heather said...

Thankyou for that Maggi - I'll take a look.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Heather - I think there is a disease among chaffinches which affects their legs - not sure what it is but I am sure the RSPB would tell you if you sent them an e mail. They are very good at replying.

I quite like those embellished pieces so shall be interested to see what they look like with a bit of hand stitching (have you thought of a bit of beading?)

Carol Q said...

i love the wonderful heath/moorland colours and texture you've created here. poor little bird. nice to know he seems to be able to survive it though.

Lyn said...

oh poor birdie, but like you say he seems happy enough!
xxx

Twiglet said...

We have had the occasional poorly chaffinch too. I looked back on your earlier posts re your little embellished pieces. I see what you mean. Maybe if you put a thicker thread on the bobin and then worked from the wrong side you would get a bolder finish without making the free machining so dense and flattening. (Just a thought!)Show us what you end up with. x Jo

Val said...

Hi Heather - I love your embellished pieces too! I agree with Jo and Maggi - I think you have to add contrasts (you've only got one colour and one thickness of thread so far) They look quite small, so wouldn't take long to build up some layers of different colours and threads (on the machine) finishing up with hand stitching - they'll finish up beautiful little treasurers - I bet!

Jackie said...

These are beautiful Heather. I don't think the sinking matters. Its subtle. Oh and Chester is adorable. Thanks as always for your loyal following of my blog and supportive comments.