Pretty Peacock

Peacock head detail of embroidered textile art by artist Nicky Perryman

Shimmer shimmer shimmer. It’s taking forever to “sequinize” this peacock embroidery. I really want to finish it soon but peacock bedazzling can’t be rushed. Sewing them on by hand is painstakingly slow. Sigh.

The section of “feathers” at the back of the peacock’s neck – between the tail are made from large sequins bonded on, using bondaweb, and baking parchment to make sure the sequins don’t stick to the iron. The sequins will melt together and form a stiff layer which can be quite interesting. Sometimes it goes really brittle so you have to stitch it before that happens – I stitched through them by machine using a stitch pattern I know works well and will hold them on if the bonding fails. It feels weird stitching through them, almost like stitching through a layer of thin toffee!

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