New Fantail Brooches

I'm still making them! Here are a few new ones I have available until I send my order to my new stockist Mattt on Gertrude Street, Melbourne. I'm also looking for stockists in the UK and Ireland. If you're interested please send me an email at bridbird78[at!]hotmail.com.

Two New

Since discovering that I can buy felt balls and realizing I can get them online from here or here I've been making a number of fantail necklaces. They have been received well at market, especially the red ones! Here are two of my most recent pieces.

Also, today on the way back from pilates class I saw an Eastern Spinebill, I think a male. I just looked him up in the bird book now. He was very handsome with a lovely long curved beak. (The photo is not mine, just an image from the internet)

Evolution

I've just been looking at my inactive listings on etsy on my bridbird shop and I found these. They are my very first fantail brooches, before they were fantails! They've all change quite a lot since then, changes that I didn't actually realise while I was making them! I find it interesting to see the evolution of a design.

The first brooches were made with synthetic felt, the colours were more limited and I wasn't so keen on the feeling of the synthetic felt. I stopped making them for a few months, but then I found wool felt sellers on the internet that had a wonderful range of colours and I started making them again. I always thought I'd make these brooches for a short time only, my attention span is sometimes quite short and I don't like repeating the same design too often. I decided I'd keep making them until I got bored of them. The birds soon became fantails because I liked being able to decorate their tails, as well as their wings. 

Now the birds have become more stylised, their heads aren't so rounded and I feel the stitching is more confident. I still love making them, I think because each one is different. I'm not going to stop making them any time soon, only when my eye sight starts to go!

Fantails For Sale!

Here are a few more new fantail brooches I've added to my Featherstitch Fantail blog. I'm very pleased with myself for working out how to use the paypal thingy! Also I have donated one of my brooches to the Australian Bushfire Appeal shop on etsy which is still full of lots of delightful goodies and all proceeds go to the red cross to help victims of the Victorian bushfires.

It's Been a While!

Sorry for neglecting the old blog last week, I got a bit snotty and I've been waiting for gocco supplies to arrive before I can make new prints. Supplies STILL haven't arrived, but the snot situation has cleared up so I thought I'd show you a few of my new brooches.

I had made felt brooches before, but I sort of stopped. Then I found feltcraftstudio on etsy who sold wool felt. I couldn't resit it. I bought 12 colours and started making them again. OH! the difference between working in the synthetic felt and the wool felt. Wool felt is just gorgeous to work with! To make these brooches I layer up the colours and cut into them to reveal the colour underneath. Then I hand sew them together adding details along the way.


I'm only selling these brooches at Rose Street Artists Market, so far they seem to go rather well there. Each brooch is individual, often they sort of create themselves, I just weild the scissors and the needle and thread and they guide me, coming in to existance with their own character and expression!Christina, who has a stall beside me (she sells brilliant skirts that you can wear in numerous ways) said I should try and put my maker name onto my brooches, so I've started to hand stitch 'bridbird' onto the back. I think it's a nice touch. Now I need to restock for next Saturday.