New Phoenix Piece In Process!

First Attempt

      So I have been working this phoenix piece, trying to recreate a sort of mish-mash between a crane kanzashi and my original phoenix piece I tried years ago.  I have completed the frame, which is all thread wrapped wire.  The head, neck, and feet are all Rayon 40w Machine emobridery thread, and the tail is the nylon crochet thread I like the use for the bira bira
       The wings you see below are the new set and they are HUGE.   I have made them proportional to the tail length but at the same time they are at least 3.5 to 4 inches in width.  Not only that, but I have used up the last of my red chirimen in order to make this piece.  I even have two different colors of red in there, the china red and the dark red.  But frankly you can't tell unless you look very closely at the real piece.  I still have one more row of rounded petals I want to place around the neck to make it more full and to hide the underneath better.

New Wings

    Though I have made enough sales lately between custom orders and random items that I put in a new chirimen order! It should arrive next week I hope, so that I can have more red (and some other colors) to finish these wings off.  Meanwhile I will be working on the tail, which is the same colors at the original piece. 
     Seeing as this baby is HUGE i am going to have to eventually try again on a much smaller piece that I can handle better.  But it was fun to try a bird again.  Cranes are awesome too but I didn't have enough white to pull something like that off.  (I will once this new order come in.)

     I have a few more ideas on things I am going to make.  I am going to spend some time making stock items to build up some inventory for not only the TZArtisan shop but my own as well.  I also have that big stock of new prints I got from Ariel, the TZArtisan team leader, and the barrette forms and things I want to play with.  I still have that mizuhiki to try out, and I want to do some Christmas pieces.  I'm not sure I will get it all done this year, though.