Cardinal Quilt Twinchy Free Needlepoint Pattern

This week’s free pattern is inspired by a bird quilt block from Nero’s Post and Patch. I used the block for the structure of my ornament, but changed the colors. The original block is pictured below.

First, I turned the bird into a cardinal. I made his body red instead of orange. His wing dark red instead of black (red would not have shown up). His beak is yellow-orange and his legs are brown. Then, in keeping with the spirit of the original block, I used many different threads, turning it into a Scrap Bag Needlepoint project.

The block is a 5×5 square. In order to make my needlepoint version 2″ square, my squares use Akita, below, a variation of Scotch that fits over 7 threads, making my block 35 threads square. Depending on the opening of my frame, I may need to add a narrow border, which I plan to do in metallic.

The direction of the stitches will need to be reversed to fit some of the triangles. In addition to this I switched directions on single-color squares so that there would be more variation.

If there are blocks split into triangles, except the beak, they are half-square triangles. This mean half the stitches plus the stitch that goes from corner to corner is in the dominant color. The beak is smaller, only five stitches wide. It’s diagrammed below.

The legs are also a challenging problem. They take up only a portion vertically on two blocks. They are also diagrammed below. Make two of these side-by-side.

Follow the picture of the patch or the stitched ornament for your own design.

Come back next Tuesday for another free design!