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.

Big May Giveaway

I'm having a featherstitch fantail giveaway! Simply go to my featherstitch fantail blog and choose your favourite design, leave a comment on it and I will pull out a winner at the start of June. The winner will win a brooch in similar colours to the design favoured. Remember to leave your email so I can get in contact with you. Good Luck! Here are a few of my most recent designs listed...

www.featherstitchfantail.blogspot.com

Fantail Flock

After much thinking and working out of finance I decided to buy a new computer instead of trying to get the old PC working again. I thought that if it was going to cost $500 to get the old sluggish thing to work for a few more months, then I might as well spend a bit more on a new computer. So here I am on my new mac. It smells lovely and new and I've already got the Martha Wainwright cd that I borrowed from the library onto my itunes and downloaded BBC radio 4 podcasts! (one of the things I miss most about not living in UK is Radio 4)

So I thought I'd better get on and post on my blog. Here are a few more fantail brooches I have made while the computer has been down.

Also, just to fill you in on the wildlife around here - the Tawny Frogmouth has left his old tree. I don't see him anymore which is sad. Instead I've started seeing yellow tailed black cockatoos over the house and ganggangs over the river, which for inner suburban melbourne I thought was quite surprising. I've also started to see rats in and out of our house which isn't so nice even if I do think they look a little bit cute.

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.

Fantails and Frogmouths

I've been goccoing again after a long time of it sitting on the shelf. I've been meaning to try this idea for a while now, and now that I have done it I really like it and need to buy more gocco supplies because I've very quickly run out AGAIN!

If you're new to my blog and don't know what gocco is have a look at my post on the technique.

My idea was to make prints inspired by the colours and patterns in my featherstitch fantail brooches. I've made the print in a number of colour combinations and listed one on etsy. More will be listed soon.
I've also been making lots of new fantail brooches, I try and make at least 6 a week. They are so slow to make and I have so many other things that I should be doing, that when I just sit down to sew I feel I should be doing something else. So they always get pushed to the back of the 'to do' list, which is a shame because I do quite like making them. Here are a few of my favourites at the moment, including an experimental square one. I'm really into the soft yellow these days.

I've changed my Fantail website a bit to make it easier to purchase, there is now a 'buy now' button on each brooch. I've also mentioned that buying my brooches on a friday, saturday or sunday from the website may create difficulties because I take all my available brooches to market with me and I can't update the website until I return home after market (often with a few gin and tonics in me!)




I thought I'd also keep my readers up to date with my Tawny Frogmouth. I was worried last week because he wasn't in his usual tree along the Yarra River, but I walked (even ran some way!) along the river this morning and there he was sitting in his tree accompanied by another Tawny Frogmouth! They were snuggled up together on the branch. I wish I had brought my camera with me, but I only had my ipod and a hanky! I only stopped one person this time to point them out and she was very appreciative and we had a little discussion about other birds we'd seen along the river. I have to keep an eye out for kingfishers apparently.

Feather In Your Hat

I've been stitching and stitching trying to get ready for Christmas. I've started making more of my fantail hat/ lapel pins since they seemed popular at market last weekend. They are made up of the same layering and hand sewn embroidery as the Featherstitch Fantail brooches with hand felted balls to embellish!



I'm also happy because I have finally sorted out my packaging for my brooches. I bought myself a rubber stamp of my "Bridbird" label and I found the most perfect little boxes, in a $2 shop would you believe! Unfortunately the shop has now run out of boxes but I think I may have found a (very cheap) supplier online. I've given them my card details and now waiting to see if anything arrives! Hope they come soon, fingers crossed they come at all!


I've added more brooches onto my Featherstitch Fantail sight too!

Boxes for the Birds

OH! I've just bought the most delicious new felt in gorgeous colours! Soft greens, rose pinks, a lovely light turquoise, wait till you see my new colour combinations, I'm so excited about them all!
I'm also excited by my new boxes in which to display the birds, I'm playing around with ideas at the moment, but I'm loving making these little birdies and I think I might really concentrate on them. I'm thinking also of starting a special blog just for them, I'll keep you updated as to what happens.


I'm sorry I've been so tardy at my blog lately, new things have been happening including I've been on the look out for a studio, AND now, I've found one! Hooray! No more trying to work in my living room on the floor, creating havoc and making Jeremy's home life a misery of mess! I'll be moving in over the next few weeks, I can't wait.

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.

Funiscool is Cool!

I have become a fan of Sarah McNeils little bird brooches. I bought a shining flycatcher brooch and it's just gorgeous! Have a look at these other delights all carefully cut out of coloured card.


You can see more of her work in her etsy shop funiscool or on her blog. Or if you are in Melbourne I recently discovered a new made in melbourne shop on Victoria Street which sells Sarah's work. It is called Bamakko and has many melbourne made items, now including my own!

All new Bridbird

I've decided to re-vamp my bridbird etsy shop. New banner, new avatar and a new range of brooches!

These brooches are made using my print gocco kit. The bird bodies are screen printed from one screen and then the bird wings are screenprinted from a second screen registered over the first. This enables me to get the different colours close by each other. I then fix the printed images onto thick artist's mounting board card, Cut out the shapes with a scalpel and then paint a number of coats of varnish on both sides. A brooch back is then affixed and they are ready to wear! I like the colours of these birds and I enjoyed making the different patterns in the wings. I am also listing the full 8 birds as a gocco screenprinted picture, to frame up and put on your wall!

A new flock just flown in

I've been busy making lots more bird brooches this week after getting low on stock at the markets last weekend. Here is the new flock !

I have added a number of new drawings to my repertoire. They include a chicken, a willy wagtail, a bowerbird and two canoodling lovebirds. I've also made lots of the little nondescript bird because he seems to be popular. I will be at Rose Street Artist's Market this Saturday and next selling all my little bird brooches as well as my etchings and screen prints.
I will also start to list these brooches on etsy, I'm waiting for the right weather to take photos!