This is Munin, one of allfather Odin's ravens. Munin means "memory", and together with Hugin ("thought"), he was sent out every morning to investigate what mankind was doing and then report it to Odin. Odin was always worried that his ravens would not return, and that "thought" and "memory" (of the old religion) would then be lost forever. (Old Nordic mythology)
I started with embellishing a piece of fine linen to a woolen cloth, back and front several times, until the two layers were melted together. Then I drew up the outlines with a soft pencil, stitched them with grey wool in chainstitch and worked a couching stitch over the chainstitch with some red strands of wool. I added some quilting stitches with a linen thread at the wings (split-, stem-, satinstitch and french knot for the details).
The runes to the left mean "Munin".
I didn't use real embroidery yarn - the grey one is actually a fine knitting wool, the red one comes from an old woolen tassle. For the stitching background, I like the combination of linen on wool a lot - the wool softens and stiffens the linen (that means you don't need a hoop), and still there is a good linen-feeling in the material.
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