Making Birds

In my last post, 

I talked about book club.

Since we read the book,

"A Guide to the Birds of East Africa"

(this book was a novel, not a guide--

but it did have lots of birds in it),

I thought it would be fun to make

these whimsical little birds for decorations.

I got the pattern for the plump birds here

at a blog called Lolly Chops.

  (I did make the tail section a little longer than the Lolly Chops pattern on this bird)

I pinned--then sewed (with right sides together) one side

of the bird's tummy.  I used the smallest seam allowance I could manage.

Then did the same with the other side 

of the bird & the other side of the tummy.

I then sewed (right sides together still) around the tail

& top of the bird--leaving a section under the neck 

for turning & stuffing. 

I put some legumes from my food storage in the

tail section to weight the bird--then stuffed it with polyfill.

(By the way this is the best use I've found for legumes so far! Ha!)

For the wings, I just put wrong sides of the

fabric together & zigzagged around the edges.

I thought the wings were too small to make any

other way, & I like the raw edge look on this project.

I just hand sewed the wings on & buttons for eyes.

I gave some of the birds tail feathers--which are just

lots of wings put together.

I also fell in love with some birds I found at

greyhood.com.

They put theirs in the nursery & I 

am going to save mine for that 

"grandbaby room" I'll be decorating 

someday.

Here's my version . . .

I made my own pitiful amateur pattern

for this style of bird.
You are welcome to it!
Here it is:

This is made pretty much like the fatter bird,
except I didn't use wings since it looked
more like a pigeon.

I also created my own tree for them to perch in.
(I saw a silver tree that I really liked at Z Gallerie, but
it was about $100. The one I made is similar to it.)

I cut a branch off a tree in my back yard,
put it in a pot & used plaster of paris to
affix it. Then I spray painted it
in 30 degree weather . . .
I'm hard core like that!
I like the way it came together.