Progress on the Cardinal Pincushion

I've been working on the Christmas Cardinal Pincushion!  Just trying it out to see how it's going to look by shaping the block around another of my CD pincushions.


I knew I wanted to add an embroidered cardinal using Gerry's technique for embroidering birds.  I've used it before with great success.  For the cardinals, I started by sketching some from photos of cardinals that I found on Flickr.


Then I reduced the sketches, cut them out  and tried out the placement on the block.


Then I laid out the little cutouts on my felt so they all fit within the embroidery hoop.  That pink hoop against the red is enough to give me a headache!  You can see that what I originally intended to be ONE embroidered cardinal turned into three!


The birds were traced and primary elements sketched in with a Micron marker.


I outlined the birds with a tight chain stitch and then embroidered away.  Rather than layering elements, I relied on different stitches to add dimension.  Wish I had a better technique for those beaks though.


Then I trimmed them out.  Going to look great!  The trimming part is the most nerve wracking part of this for me as I always seem to trim at least one spot too close and end up with a loose thread or two,


Then each little bird got appliqued to the block.  Pretty happy with the way these turned out.  For scale this bird is just 2 inches long from tip of crest to end of tail and about an inch wide.  Definitely needed my reading glasses and a bright work light!


Another cardinal.  Like I said, the beak needs work!  This little guy is just an inch and a half from top to bottom.


And here it the block as it stands right now.  I've got the borders marked and just need to finish embellishing the seams with some beads and sequins!  This won't be the most functional of pincushions, but will be a nice decoration!