I made quite a few alterations to the Elegant Oriole kit! I thought folks might be interested in a labeled photo indicating the stitches I used. It’s practically a sampler.
I’ve decided I adore Cretan stitch, but I definitely need more practice with it. You can get a variety of effects depending on how you spread the stitch out, and I’d like to play around some so I can control which effect I get. At the moment it tends to wobble around a bit.
I’m also a huge fan of the layered lazy daisy stitches in the bottom blue-purple flower – I’ve used them before and they always look fantastic. Portuguese stem stitch (the brown branches) is another stunning stitch that’s fairly easy to pick up.
For reference, here’s the unlabeled photo of the finished piece:
embroidery for ducks 
Very nice work Hannah! Well done.-=)
Thanks!
Portuguese Knotted Stem is one of my favourites too – it’s a fantastically useful stitch!
Thank you for posting your stitch guide. Such a good job.
That’s beautiful. I much prefer the flowers you stitched, over the colors with the kit — yours are so very vibrant!
Thank you for adding the stitch guide — very helpful =).
Thank you! The yellow-orange background is very close to complementary to the blue, which makes the colors pop. See the contrast of the cool colors with the warm colors in the rest of the piece?
Hi Hannah,
I love the finished piece. Like you, I often change things to my own taste. After all it’s your piece of work, and the instructions are there as a guideline, and not cast in stone. I particularly like that yoy have changed the colours and the stitches.
Gwendoline
Your choice in the colours for the remaining flowers (blue) has worked great. And I love the breast of the bird – so pretty in those apricot/orange flowers. I think yours look better than the photo of the original 🙂 More colour blending.