Another Blackwork piece now finished. At least the stitching part is finished I think. Not in black of course, but in blue. Not quite sure why I chose blue. Perhaps as it was a bird in the sky, blue just seemed right? Anyway here it is, hot of the frame.
The fabric is also in blue, a 32 count murano in light blue. This is a cotton/modal mix, which I use a lot for blackwork. A bit cheaper than linen! Good colour to represent the sky I think. The thread is a dark royal blue silk from the au ver à soie range. I used one, two and three strands in the work. Altogether there are six different blackwork patterns in the piece. These patterns do not of course represent the actual pattern of feathers on a merlin. I just chose those I liked and aimed for a bit of contrast between open and closed patterns. Artistic licence?
I don’t think it shows in the photo, but the beak and the eye are in different threads. The beak is a dark navy blue cotton thread – two strands over the silk. While the eye is a brighter royal blue from the Rajmahal silk/rayon collection.
At the moment I intend to leave the work without an outline. The feathers on a bird never make a single line. So a broken line seems to go with the subject matter.
The inspiration for this piece came from a work we saw during our recent trip to Mull in October. There I came across this simple, but lovely painting on wood.
On seeing this piece I immediately thought I could try something similar using blackwork patterns. The outline for the merlin comes from an old, 1972, copy of Book of British Birds. From the same source I have an outline of a crossbill, which may well be my next foray into blackwork!
the bargellist 
I think you are right not to outline it. In fact you could probably have left some of the edges a bit less defined without losing anything.