Two Birds on a Branch (completed)

I love, love, love how this turned out ! ! ! Many thanks to my hubby for helping me “yay” and “nay” the brads/buttons/flowers that I added to the embroidery.

I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a variety of brads and buttons (their scrapbooking section rocks!), then dumped them all out onto the table and started placing different things here and there on the canvas . . . talk about sensory overload!! In addition to the blues and greens I ended up using, I also have buttons and brads in the gold/orange range, which I bought because I wanted to pull in some color similar to what’s on the birds’ breasts.

I decided to use these scrapbooking flowers to bring in colors other than blue and green. I like the dimension they give, and how they balance all the blues and greens.

This project was my first time to stitch on artist’s canvas, and my first time to incorporate things like buttons / brads / paper flowers into an embroidery project. (Well, the latter is not entirely true. Earlier this year, kiddo and I made my mom a fabric collage and I used some cute insect buttons on it. But it was more a collage than an embroidery project.) I was amazed at how many fantastic brads there are in the scrapbooking section of Hobby Lobby!! And they are so easy to use on the artist’s canvas — I used my exacto knife to make a very small slit in the canvas, then slid the brad things thru those, opened up the brads, and that’s all there was to it. So super easy.

Honestly, I enjoyed stitching on the artist’s canvas much more than fabric. (Let me clarify: I love stitching on fabric . . . but I love stitching on artist’s canvas MORE .) Since this was something I was making as a gift for other people, I didn’t experiment much with different stitches — I used only backstitch and stem stitch. I was little leery of using stitches that call for your needle going in and out the same hole, or the “in” stitch and “out” stitch being so very near each other — french knots and chain stitch come to mind — I was concerned I’d end up with a big hole, because the artist’s canvas does not feel as forgiving as fabric in that respect. However, on the small piece I’m making for myself, I intend to use lots of french knots, so I’ll play around with different stitches on that piece.

I’m excited to do some more projects on artist’s canvas, and incorporating other materials, like the scrapbooking supplies, into my work. First up, tho, I want to finish a tea towel I started last night, and I have a few hankies I want to do, so I can get those items and this completed project shipped off. Then I’ll be back to artist’s canvas projects!!