Birthday Peacock

The burnt doodling of the other day was followed by a more planned piece of stitching for a birthday card for a very important gentleman with a very important birthday. I returned to themes of some of my more recent work (if you call 2009 recent), previous studies and combined free machine embroidery with the application of a soldering iron. As with my other work in this style I restricted my choice of stitches to stem stitch and straight stitch.  There was a slight cheat in that satin stitch made an appearance due to straight stitch also being known as single satin stitch, which when stitched together makes satin stitch (who'd of thought?).  Of course, the straight stitch became small enough in the top part of the piece to be considered seed stitching.

I only used 3 different threads for this piece as well, a Madeira 40 metallic for the machine embroidery, a Madeira 12 metallic either doubled or single and a hand dyed 2 ply silk for the hand sewing.  The fabrics used either came from some old sewing projects of mine (pre leaving home ones), a couple of shoe projects and an interesting table melting experience (how I miss those days).