Murmuration ATCs

I love watching the birds. We have a big clattering of Jackdaws who live in an old tree outside our house. Clattering being the official name for a group of Jackdaws and definitely a very apt one as they can be very noisy, especially in the evenings when they come back to roost and have their little routine of all leaping out of the tree at once for a quick swoop round the neighbourhood shouting at each other before settling back down again. It can be quite an impressive experience if you get caught underneath it!

Murmuration is the word to describe groups of Starlings (which are smaller than Jackdaws, although can be equally noisy and squabbly in groups!) that fly in swirly patterns in the sky. If you are lucky enough to see one it is quite mesmeric as they sway and swoop and dance in the sky, seemingly all in tune with each other. Often this happens at sunset which somehow makes it all the more spectacular, and the term 'murmuration' comes from the noise of the wings all flapping and humming together. It can be hundreds, sometimes thousands of Starlings all coming together at once!

I don't know how many birds are in my Stitchscapes, I haven't counted the individual fly stitches made to represent them (you're more than welcome to, answers on a postcard please). I have tried to build up layers of them and have areas that are darker than others so it looks like they're turning, or perhaps flying closer. The fabric underneath the stitches is actually printed with lots of black letters on a white background. The letters themselves looked to me a bit like individual birds so I thought it would be a good place to start. I've gone over the whole layer with single strand fly stitches, then added in some bigger birds with two strands to make the lines stronger and bolder. 

To echo the whooshing and movement, I've threaded some running stitches through the layer below to almost represent the wind perhaps, either wind that the birds are following or wind created by those hundreds of fluttering wings. I wonder if it does feel windy if you get up close to a real murmuration?

In researching it seems that the majority of murmurations are over marshland, piers or other open spaces near to roosting sites. There seem to be several ideas about why the birds gather like this, some have suggested they are keeping warm, some have said it could be due to feeding if it's low to the ground, some have said they gather to ward off predators who would be put off by a moving black cloud. 

I've sort of gone for the marshland landscape as it meant I could have some fun with my fancy sugar craft stamens. The colours overall are soft as I was thinking of dusk and misty evenings where the light is fading away. 

The blue hill I have covered with two strand seed stitches in a matching blue, and then scattered some pale yellow french knots across it to add a little floral aspect.

The fabric at the bottom hasn't had much in the way of texture stitching as I've gone in with my grasses instead. The stamens were stitched down first, just folding them in half and couching across the bottom fold, then one couch on each side to keep the stalks in place. I've used two different types of stamen because I couldn't choose between them. They were given to me by a lady from Ringmer WI a couple of years ago and she had had them for a long time herself so some of the green ones don't have ends on both sides (I think we may be able to call them vintage) but actually it kind of adds to the whole effect for me. 

I've 'bedded' in the strands with some chunky long and tall fly stitches, using three strands so they are really bold, then bedded in the fly stitches with french knots in a tonal pale blue. More of a ground surface (or perhaps even water if you think it looks watery enough) has been added just with a few lines of single strand stitches around those clumps. 

I really like the contrast in these cards. The birds are very bold and domineering so they are the focus, but then when you look at the detail, there is a lot of texture in the softer colours. Without the birds being there, the stamens would be the focus which I feel is the case if you were actually watching a murmuration. 

So, the stitch run down for these cards is; fly stitch (obviously!), blanket stitch, running stitch, couching, french knots, seed stitch and straight stitch.