Yesterday morning I was searching Flickr for a hummingbird embroidery pattern when I discovered Susan’s incredible embroidery of an Anna’s Hummingbird.
Since 2002, Susan has been stitching a collection of birds that visit her garden — each one exquisite — based on John James Audubon’s Birds of America. I contacted Susan to request permission to post her photos and to find out more about this unique project.
“My bird project began as a way of combining two of my favorite pastimes, photographing birds in my backyard and hand embroidery. I also have a big book of reproductions of Audubon’s folios from the 1820s and 30s that my husband’s Great Aunt Ethel gave him when he was a child. This and the serendipidous finding of the Audubon embroidery patterns by Barbara Christopher made for a project I just couldn’t pass up. I have cheated just a little on the last couple of birds. I wanted to include an Oregon dark-eyed junco and a house sparrow in the collection (they are frequent visitors) but didn’t have the Audubon patterns for them. I have used different patterns for those two but I think all in all they will look fine with the others.”
Visit ruffledfeathers Flickr Audubon photos here. The set contains Susan’s personal photo of each bird, the Audubon plate, and then her embroidery. Susan has also posted photos of many other embroidery projects that are equally amazing. If you are an embroiderer (or have an appreciation of beautiful stitching), you don’t want to miss this. It’s inspiring.
Wow.. her work is stunning. And what a nice idea to catalogue visiting birds in needlepoint. 🙂
Incredible is right!