My goldwork pheasant

It is finished! I can’t believe it I have actually completed it. In a previous post I have written about starting this project from Inspirations Magazine 93 (design by Jenny Adin -Christie) and how much I loved the design. I really happy with the final result and how it resembles to original design but that it still feels like my own effort. Over the past few weeks I have shared my progress with you on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and I am really happy to be able to share the final design with you as well. I couldn’t wait until the weekend and I just had to write a quick post to share it!

In the slideshow below, you can see how the project progressed from beak through padding, border, border, grasses, hillock and legs. It is a very varied project using lots of different types of thread, beads and ribbon. This made the project really varied and interesting. It never felt boring or repetive. Even the border, which required a lot of similar stitches never felt a chore as you had to be constantly on the ball to keep track of the or nué pattern.

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It wasn’t all fun and easy though as using some of the threads were quite challenging and I did have a few arguments with them. The Au ver à Soie soie 100/3, which I used to create the or nué pattern kept knotting on me, however short the lengths were I cut. The silk gimp provided quite a challenge too. For those of you not familiar with this type of thread, silk gimp is made of a white cord covered in a coloured silk sleeve. Because of its thickness it is very difficult to thread even in a chenille 22 needle which you had to use. The silk sleeves breaks very quickly when stitching at the ends and at your needle. Since it is a smooth thread the couching thread has nothing to grap a hold of, like with purl purl, but gets pulled to the back from under the coucing stitches when plunging the ends to the back. This ment you have couch them all over again! As the threads are very thick it is also difficult to get them to sit straight and flat. The one good this about silk gimp is the french knot you can make with them. They are very easy to make and look really nice.

Another type of thread with its own instructions is smooth purl. The thread damages very quickly so you need to cut it very decisively as you can’t keep moving up and down with your scissors. If you want to create a curve using smooth purl you have to cut very small (2-3 mm) pieces as you can’t really bent longer pieces without damaging them. If you have damaged a piece of smooth purl you only notice it once you have stitched a few more pieces it is really easy to remove a piece. Stick a thin needle in the middle of the piece you want to remove and pull up one thread of the coil, keep pulling it and the coil unravels easily. Thread a new piece of smooth purl and stitch it in the gap.

I will definitely be stitching more projects like this and I will definitely be using the kit service provided by inspirations magazine. Despite frogging a few times I never ran out of any of the speciality threads, beads and ribbon as there were enough spare pieces. The only thing I ran out of was the olive green sewing thread but that was easily replaced.

I will be taking my pheasant to the framers later on this week and hopeful the can make a nice frame for a small oval piece. Once it is back, I will of course share it on my blog and on social media!