If you had asked me ten years ago what springs to mind when hearing the word “hummingbird”, I’d probably have said: my favourite stationery store as a teenager. It was called Kolibri – hummingbird in German – and it was conveniently located on the way from school to the bus stop, which made it very easy to stop in for a card or some stickers. But I digress.
Coming to Nova Scotia, my hummingbird horizon was quickly expanded. We learned to welcome them as harbingers of spring, put out a feeder, and have been enjoying watching them ever since.
When I started thinking about a new apron design last year, hummingbirds felt like a natural subject. They’re a fixture of our Cape Breton summers, and I’d been wanting to work with them for a while. The challenge was the same one I always face with my paper-cut work: my shapes are simple and static. No gradients, no blur, no suggestion of motion. A hummingbird that isn't moving is barely a hummingbird at all.
The solution came from thinking about the pattern rather than the individual bird. A single cut-out shape could look frozen. Several birds, overlapping and angled in different directions, start to feel like flight. Once I stopped trying to capture movement in one shape and started thinking about how the birds move around each other, the design clicked into place.
I went through several pattern variations – different flower shapes, different densities, different greens – before landing on the one that felt right. Then came the colour decision, which is never quick. Colours on fabric and on paper are two different things, and the swatches only get you so far.
The finished apron is screen-printed on sturdy cotton, the same as the Berry Bake and Lobster Feast. It’s available now in the shop.
