More About the No Neck Birds

I’ve been working on the no neck birds at night. July is another time of the year when I get a lot of evening work down, as we watch the Tour de France. (And it has been crazy this year!) I hooked a few birds and then added some more on the opposite side. I debated sprinkling the birds around but then decided to make it two-sided. The next design consideration was what to do around them. I used cut paper leaves and some string to see what each idea would actually look like and I came up with three ideas. The first one, below, was vines that go from side to side.

And the next was side to side the other direction, sort of like birds on a wire.

The last idea was flower stalks that stop in the middle area. This is the design that Peter and I liked as it added more color and fun. Using the string and paper pieces worked very well as an auditioning tool!

And here you see some of it hooked. I am playing with several green leaf colors as I don’t like the one you see here. But I think the flower works. It is impossible to see, but I am doing two color beading around the flower middles as well as on the birds’ legs. Next step was to try the background colors. I had some lovely, dark, navy, burgundy, plum plaid fabric, but as usual – – – not enough! So I am using that with two other plaids. I am also using a wider cut (width) of wool in the background so the hooking will go a bit faster. I haven’t used two different cuts before so I am being careful to make sure they are the same height.

Also notice that I am making the corners curved! It will be much easier to finish and why do non woven rugs have to have square corners???