Followers

08 April 2006

Has Anyone Seen...

... A purple bird before? And not just any ordinary purple bird at that, a fashionable one that has a pink handbag on her wing and knows how to use a cell phone. No? Well, let me introduce you to Margaret Sherry's 4 Calling Birds from her 12 Days of Christmas series.
This is for Marion's RR and is stitched on Zweigart's coffee gold flecked Brittney. Now, this piece is pretty special to me not only because she's cute, (heck, all Margaret Sherry's designs are cute!) but because I managed to master French knots through her. Notice that there're 6 French knots in the pattern which is the most I've done so far for this RR. It's pretty common for a cross stitcher to dislike French knots but for me, there's nothing I loathe more. I'll have to appologise to Kathy if my French knots are not up to standard on her RR. Kathy, feel free to redo it if you wish. Luckily on Jackie's RR, she has opted to replace the French knots with beads instead.
Frankly, I don't know what exactly happened. I think it must be my change of technique. I had downloaded instructions from the Internet before regarding French knots but I could never get it right. This time, I decided to try out the instructions given in the UK magazines. I did the first knot and it turned out just right. After that, I quickily got the hang of it and towards the end, I was actually having so much fun with it that I added two more on the alphabets of my name and country. Pretty drastic change, considering that this was something that I used to avoid like the plague. Am pretty satisfied with myself at the moment. *Smug grin* Goes to show that if you're afraid of something, face it, learn how to do it and that will in turn conquer your fears.

9 comments:

Carto said...

Hi there!

I love your 'Purple Bird'!

Good for you regarding the French Knots! It took me absolutely ages to master them. In the end my Sister (who is also a X-Stitcher), sat me down and showed me one afternoon how to do them. I think she showed me because she got so fed up with my moaning and tantrums about them!

A job well done! :)

Jenn said...

Glad to hear that you master the French Knot. I use to know how to do them when I started stitching then forgot as time went by. I just learned again last year although I have to say they aren't the greatest looking things but, I'm getting the hang of it.

Your MS bird looks so cute.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on a finish and mastering those dreaded knots!

Modern day birds, next they'll surf in net or something? *grin*

Sasha Farina said...

you're right.. that bird is indeed a funky one :)

Lillie said...

She's a groovy chick ! Congrads for mastering those French knots! My knots are still moody at times LOL!
~ Lillie

Elizabeth Braun said...

The alternative 'Calling birds', very good! Another good alternative version I heard of the '12 days' song, was when I was learning Chinese in Taiwan and one class contributed a measure words version of '12 days':
Wuge xuexsheng
Sizhang zhi
Sanben shu
Liangzhi bi
Xianzai women xuexi measure words
!!!!!!
Apologies to those who don't know any Chinese, but I suspect V will.=)

Leeland said...

French knots: it took me a very long time to get it, until my friend taught me -once she had herself understood it! It was the day before I left on summer holiday. To thank her, I stitched her a card with an anemone and loads of French knots inside!
It feels so good to master new techniques...
Take care!

Chiara said...

Your chick is gorgeous!!! I like all your Ms work!!!
cheers

Renee said...

Congrats on mastering French Knots! It takes a while to get the hang of them but once you do it is smooth sailing! :)