Watching a cheeky song thrush steal strawberries from the garden inspired this well known design called 'The Strawberry Thief'.
It was first produced in 1883, the pattern was created by William Morris using the birds drawn by his close friend, architect Philip Webb.
I chose the thief along with it's stolen strawberry to create my derivitive lace version.
I made use of grounds to add texture , triangle ground for the neck, mayflower ground for the chest, and, although l copied the uneven lines of the original, the wing is festoon ground. The narrow trails proved a sequential puzzle, which l always enjoy, and kiss stitches proved to be the best solution.
This would have been easier made in sections, but l started at the beak, worked right through to the tail, added legs and the strawberry to finish. I rolled the edges on the legs and was tempted to roll the outline and some of the wing edges but left it plain in the end.
This piece took 74 pairs of East Midlands bobbins, worked in my favourite Empress white Egyptian mercerised quilting cotton at 29 wpc. Pins were 30 x 0.5mm. Pillow was an angled block pillow using a round disc block.
