Stumpwork assessment piece, progress so far

I've had a busy week and weekend so far.  Now that Rosey is done and mounted on the background, I needed to get on with the other elements.  Here I am doing the tree and the kookaburra and adding the gum nuts that I have already made. I've been concentrating on getting this finished as I need to put it into the Townsville Show and the Townsville Craft Show, both in July, but need to also send it to England and back for final assessment before then. 

So starting with the tree:

I added felt as to give it the raised look.

Then added a ladder type stitch, as I am going to be using raised chain band stitch.

 I then proceed to stitch the whole length and width of the tree, and added some wrapped wire components and some more fly and chain stitch along the length as well.

Not so sure of the colours, so got out my dyes and proceeded to make it a darker brown, to match the gum nuts and the wrapped wire.

Here is the result.  My second dilemma was that the dye ran a bit, so I added more stitches along the side to hide the runs.

Next,
Making the Kookaburra.

The photo above is my inspiration. First to make his wing, I cut out the wing portion of the photograph, and having the photo close, I buttonhole stitch over the wire, and long and short stitch inside, along with some chain stitch for the colour contrast for his wing.

 

Using two different coloured 6 strand floss in tan and brown, I wove the tail feathers, and one in white.  Needle laced his body, and padded it with felt. The steps for making up the bird was to place the tail feathers on top of the branch, and added the padding for the body.

I then added the needle laced body on top of my two layers of felt, and using a bit of the dye that I had for the tree, I painted the lower parts of the body, so that the transition from body to tail was not so noticeable.

Then using the photo as a guide, straight stitched his head and beak.  I also added some larger straight stitches under the back of his wing, to look like his other wing is still folded beside his body.

 

And this is where I am now...... just got to finish the background, add a spider and a dragon fly.

TTFN

Arlene