mixed embroidery – The Rainbow Angel

Over Christmas, I’ve been working on my fire screen project again, so this post is an update following on from the post I published in September.

Obviously, a crucial part of the whole thing is the method of attaching the feathers to the bird. Originally, I was thinking that it needed to be quite sturdy, so I was thinking of asking somebody competent to cut a suitable piece of wood, and drill holes to hold the pieces of dowel that forms the middle of the feather. But that idea works best when the feathers are a nice even shape, with identical width.

Which they aren’t.

So I thought I would see what I can do with fabric. I made two piramid shapes out of felt, to support the back of the bird, and stop it from moving from side to side. The outer side is embroidered, of course, to blend in. Then I cut two semi-circles of calico, and sewed channels in them, to take the dowels. That looked promising, so I attached it to the piramids. Then I cut a felt cover for the dowel holding calico, partly to make it blend in, and partly so that I can sew the lower end of the feathers to the holder, as I cut it larger. The front of this felt cover needed decoration, but I wasn’t sure how much would be visible, and I didn’t want it to get in the way of the structural stitching, which will come later. So I’ve just done some random machine embroidery.

These pictures show the feathers, slotted into the holder, cut to size. As they are not yet sewn in, they are laid out on the living room floor, with the bird slotted in to check the effect. I’m hoping that the fact the bird stayed balanced there for some time without further support is a good omen!

The bird, balanced on its tail, while I work out the placement of the feathers

An arial view. The hessian on the right is there to help work out how many more feathers I will need

The structure of the tail

The side of the piramids

The tail support cover

The cover in place

I’m now thinking of making some smaller feathers, with just the upper half visible, to full in the gaps. And I’m also thinking of fixing a horizontal dowel (or two) at the back, to stop the feathers spreading sideways, or twirling in their sockets.

And the prospect of sewing the feathers into the base, and the base onto the bird isn’t particularly appealing. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

But it may take some time…

It isn’t unusual for ideas to come together to form a plan, but I don’t remember the inspiration for a project coming from two ideas found on the same trip.

A couple of summers ago, I went on a trip to Scampston Hall, between Malton and Scarborough. They had an embroidery exhibition of work inspired by the local landscape. There were a couple of group projects, where a picture of a suitable size had been divided up into squares, each of which had been embroidered by a different person, using whatever technique seemed appropriate. The result was a series of very different embroideries, with a variety of colours and textures, but they all worked together as parts of the picture.

On the way home, we stopped at the Stained Glass Centre near Filey for a cup of tea. In front of the tea room window was a rather splendid peacock fire screen. Now I need a fire screen. The one my Mum made when she was a teenager died a few years ago, about 30 years after Dad said the leg wouldn’t last long and couldn’t be mended again. But a stained glass screen is going to look best in front of a window, so the light can shine through.

Both these ideas were burbling round my head. Then one day I found an old book about making felt toys. It had a pattern for a peacock. A quick rummage in the stash produced some hessian that was about the right side, and some suitable colour felt. I enlarged the pattern to fit on the hessian, and made a start.

The ideas for the feathers are a little more challenging. Several ideas just haven’t worked, but here are the ones that are finished or nearly finished so far.