Little Lavender Birds (Including Tutorial!)

Remember the patchwork throw project in my last post?

I've been using up some of the spare patches to make these:

Little lavender scented birds.

They aren't going to live in my twiggy heart, they just landed there to have their photograph taken!

Eldest daughter has already snaffled my favourite for her new house - the little brown one with the button on. Though being the true goth that she is she has assured me it will be out of sight in her wardrobe to keep little moths at bay!

I thought you might like to know how I made them - so here goes:

• Take a scrap of fabric. I think mine was approx 9" x   6"

 

• Fold in half and iron.

 

• Use a fine pencil to draw the outline of a bird lightly on the fabric.

 

• Take a piece of wadding and cut a rectangle as tall and wide as your drawing.

•  Make a pocket in the top of the piece of wadding and add a teaspoon of lavender.

 

• Cut your fabric in two along the fold line then layer the wadding between the two pieces of fabric. 

 

•  Now I sort of discovered later that this next stage is optional. When making another of these little birds I accidentally cut the ribbon off when trimming the bird, so had to re-attach it at the end. To hide the point of attachment I added a little button. Now to be honest that bird, I think turned out to be the best of the bunch. So if you want to add a little button on top of the ribbon and aren't too bothered about the ribbon being incorporated into the seam then feel free to skip this next bit. Otherwise - take a piece of ribbon and fold it in half. Position the ribbon under the top piece of fabric near the top of your bird's back and using a long quilting pin secure it in place.

 

• Take the whole thing, and being careful to ensure that the lavender is in the centre of the bird's body, zig-zag stitch through all the layers following your pencil outline.

• Now cut out the bird shape trimming as close as possible to your stitching. (Take care NOT to cut through the ribbon, but if you do see above!)

•  To make the legs and feet you will need to thread a darning needle with a suitably coloured yarn (note I couldn't find a proper darning needle so had to make do!), and cut two 1" squares from a suitably coloured piece of felt.

 

• Cut the squares of felt into equal heart shapes.

• Using the needle pass the wool through first one heart shape, leaving a bit of a "tail", then from one side of your bird to the other and finally through the second heart shape. Remove the needle and decide how long you want the legs, under each heart shaped foot knot the wool at the desired length, then trim away the excess.

Et voila - the finished article:

If you skipped the stage of attaching the ribbon into the seam - which frankly I intend to do with any I make in the future, attach the ribbon now covering the point of attachment with a suitable button.