Field Mouse "Pierre" finished

Nowhere near the best work, but better than expected. I will sit on it and see if he improves in a few days.
At this point I am taking a break from my "birds, flowers and cute animals" phase - although I still need work with cute animals.
I have a few frames on order and will post the framed pieces once they arrive. I haven't decided whether I want to frame Pierre or not.

Field Mouse

This piece is very difficult. It may turn out to be a "Fail".
Too many colors to keep track of...

So I gave up following the "rows" and started just winging it, using the color photo as a guide.
I'll find out how it turns out when it's done.

Field mouse tail and foot

The tail does not look cute - maybe it needs to be less hairy. I will revisit when the fur is done. The foot is interesting. This was the first time I stitched with doll's hair. The hair which is stitched around the toes for definition is more delicate that I expected, so I had to be careful when I pull through.

Details of the foot.

Tanja Berlin Field Mouse

My next project is Tanja Berlin's Field Mouse. I got this kit 5 years ago (pre-JE), together with the Red Poll kit. After failing miserably with the Red Poll - it looked like a bird fluffed up with Salmonellosis, I shelved this piece. I'm hoping that I'll be able to do this successfully this time. This kit came with all the threads and pre-printed fabric, which is nice.

It has very detailed (and complicated) instructions. It's more structured than Trish Burr's techniques - possibly due to formal training at the Royal School of Needlework.

I can hardly wait to get to the mouse. So far the plants and especially the wheat are not fun to do!

Kingfisher finished

I decided to just fix the back feathers by rounding the corners, instead of unstitching them. It is somewhat better.

The side feathers were done with 1/2 strand of light yellow Japanese flat silk. It turned out really fine and fluffy.
Then I decided that he was too skinny, and needed a rounder tummy. Here's the final version - I'm going to name him Kenny. I will review him tomorrow and see if anything else needs to be done.

I am done with doing birds for now.

Kingfisher back feathers

This piece is getting difficult. It definitely is an advanced piece. I had to redo the top tail feathers - it didn't look right the first time.

Then the individual back feathers were not too bad until I had to put the silk edging on. I had to go to full Japanese embroidery mode - awl to split the silk (1 into 2), tekobari, my prescription glasses for JE, finger cots. It took some getting used to, the silk sinks quite a bit into the floss, unlike using floss on top of floss.
It does not look good - I'll have to sleep on it.

Kingfisher

The problem with this piece is that the French knots for the lichens and the seed heads were so much fun that it was hard to stop!
Ready for the bird next. So far I haven't used any silk.