Design Works: Bird Cage

I started this as a Mother’s Day present for my Mum and I finished it 2 weeks ago so it was a few months late. She knew it was coming though so it was fine. It always takes you much longer to complete a project than you expect it will, at least it does in my experience!

It was probably one of the most adventurous designs I have worked on to date. I found working with so much silver thread a challenge. It was a course thread to work with and shard quite a lot, I’m used to using softer threads.

I ran out of two colours and had to contact Design Works for replacements. They were very helpful and sent plenty of thread replacements so I could complete the design.

I have never had to attach beads or embellishments before so that was a new skill to learn. The beading around the neck made it impossible to include the glass in the frame once I mounted it.

It was the first time I had framed a piece of work in this way. I found it difficult to iron out all of the creases and stretch the fabric around the back board of the frame evenly to ensure it sat right. I’m quite clumsy with stuff like that as I don’t have much patience, I just want to get it over with.

In the end I think it came out well. My mum is interested in art deco at the moment, I hung the cross stitch on the wall near her other picture cards and it fits in well. What I like about it is from a distance you can’t tell that it is cross stitch, you only notice when you are closer to it.