Silver Birch Stitchscape

It's finished!! My Silver Birch inspired Stitchscape. I have absolutely loved watching this piece come to life- especially with the little birds in the background. They somehow developed characters as the trees grew themselves in, peeking out from behind the trunks and perching inquisitively on the branches whilst the last few orange leaves fluttered on the twigs.

There are lots of very tiny stitches layered on top of each other. Each leaf was already part of the bird print pattern, covered in a satin stitch in white and then overlaid with a single chain stitch to add autumnal colour. The mini spot fabric has had tiny seed stitches put in the occasional spot to give a touch of lustre and texture should you run your fingers over the fabric. Even the stitches up the side of the tree trunks are multilayered whip stitches.

I think this stitchscape uses the most variety of stitches of all of my scapes so far, it has; backstitch, whip stitch, seed stitch, satin stitch, chain stitch, pekinese stitch, bullion knots, french knots, straight stitch (long stitch), and running stitch (also known as kantha stitch when in rows).

I've already tried it out in one of my test frames, the mount of which is just slightly smaller than 20 centimetres, which is the size of the hoop I used. It does mean that some stitches get lost in the framing as the position and composition- where the centre of the piece is positioned and how much of an edge is created- is quite crucial. In this case the top of the piece needed to be lighter so more was lost off the bottom. I think this must be one of my favourite stitchscapes so far!!