bird squares

I had this idea to make some more felt coasters. And I love simple geometric shapes and trees. So, I landed on a tree/bird/birdhouse thing.

I'm super new to embroidery and working with poly felt probably isn't the easiest way to work. But I am getting better at the french knot and did okay with the other kind of stitches. Plus, I squirted some glue out on a paper plate and used some cheap cotton swabs to smear it on the felt pieces rather than try to squirt the glue directly onto the pieces (disastor! mess!).

I'm not done with the little house (upper left). I wanted to finish knotting some purple dots all around it. And then my sweet husband said that the bumps and funny bits might make a glass wobble, so they might not work so well as coasters. I just happened to have this 5x5 frame sitting around, and since the felt pieces are about 4.5x4.5, they seemed to fit right in.

But they look kind of... plain. In some ways, I kind of like them super simple, but in other ways, I keep thinking, "Beads! Buttons! Add something else to give them some pop!"

I should have made the lone bird orange to match the little (attempted) orange bird in the tree. Well, there's always another try.

Tip: using a disappearing ink pen is great, but the ink kept disappearing faster than I could embroider, so I had to keep drawing so I knew where to put stitches. Funny, but none of the branches are anywhere near where I drew them, but they worked out fine.

Tip 2: wait for glue to dry completely before embroidering (unlike me! gluey glooo mess).