The bird’s wings
The wings caused much struggle and heartache.
After a morning’s stitching, I realised that all the details I had added were on the wrong side of the felt base, with the result that the wings were facing the wrong direction for the composition.
So here you see a start on the second pair of wings. I learnt from the first attempt, and the difficulties I’d had around the edges, and left the wings as part of the fabric as I worked them, using rows of fly stitches for the pinions.
After working over the wings with the embellisher to reduce the potential for stitches unravelling, I cut them out, with as much precision as I could. But I’m really not happy with them.
They are dark, heavy and clunky, too densely stitched, and much too sombrely coloured. No bird will soar on wings like this.
So, the third attempt begins. I used a fragment of felt as the leading edge of the wings and then added lengths of fibre. I’m outlining the wing shapes using a single needlefelting needle, and I’ll try to creep up on more successful wings, learning from all my past mistakes.
Your hunting cat is really beautiful, so it is worth a few false starts to get the duck right. The picture of the original painting in the cat post had quite “sketchy” wings: although the wingtips were very dark, it gave a real feeling of the birds suddenly taking off in all directions in a panic. I don’t know enough about the technique of needlefelting to make a useful suggestion. Wool surface stitchery on the ground fabric rather than felting? I am sure you will find a good solution that fits well with the cat.
Keep at it Rachel I am sure you will find the right solution.
An interesting conundrum–not only to create wings, but of the right size and weight.