A Crow in the Hand ……

is worth ?   Well in this case about two to three weeks work with life etc intervening of course.

I took the sketch from my book and printed it onto cotton, adhered this to the cloth and begun to fill in with stitching.  For the next one, and I am more than sure there will be at least one other crow on this cloth, I shall work it off-cloth and then appliqué – it was very fiddly doing it the way I did as the stitching is so heavy and dense, think that’s why it has taken so long.   This beautify measures 9″ from the tip of her tail feathers to the tip of  her beak. Apologies again for the quality, or lack thereof,  of the pics – have finally realised it is not the camera but the operator with the shakes that creates  the blurs .

and finally, blowing in the wind:

Armed!

She has arms, well to be precise, She has sleeves, but I am sure that within those sleeves there are arms, oh and perhaps much, much more – I am yet to find out.

I have included the next two pictures, because, although they are the same as the above two, the way the sun has fallen across them makes it look, to me anyway, as though there is steam bubbling from the cauldron – rather a nice touch by nature I felt

Behind the scenes

After finishing the initial part of the Wild Mother herself I felt a little stuck.  Much thinking time – then plotting and planning on paper before any further commitment to cloth takes place:

First a sidetrack: playing with crow:

How to proceed:

I think I prefer the standing figure, though some adjustments to the ‘arms’ needs to take place, but this I can do when transferring the idea to the cloth before stitching.   The cauldron I shall work separately and appliqué to the cloth.

Looking at this again now I think I want to explore her pose more fully – try different options – standing definitely – but arms may be extended……don’t know yet.

Wild Mother – complete – for now

I have finished stitching her for now – as I stitched I could see her becoming………

A close-up of the stitching

I really need to borrow a better camera, the one I have distorts the colours and does not do close-ups clearly, even with the zoom.  Still, it does the job for now.

Where I go now I am not sure – I seem to recall there being a white horse involved somewhere – echoes of the Morrigan and Rhiannon perhaps.

She Becomes Clearer

She has emerged more fully.  I am stopping at this point as I am being called to work elsewhere on the cloth.