Flocks

I've been making flocks of birds lately. They are simple, easy and it's great fun to riffle through my itsy scrap bits looking for pretty wings. I think the thing I liked best about these little birds is after I made 15 of them I told my grandchildren they could pick four, one for each of the people in their families. They didn't want to stop at four ("Grandma, can we have more?" "Grandma are there anymore?") and Charlie and Elizabeth divided the whole 15 up between them! They loved them!

Blogger friend, Carol, encouraged me to do a tutorial for this little sweetie. Apparently blogger won't let me load a pattern so I'm going to assume you can tell by looking at these little sweeties how to free hand draw them. From beak to tail - across the body they measure about 4 5/8 inches.
If that doesn't work for you, well, I don't know ...

Here's what I did:
I used Steam-a-Seam2 and set two small pieces together. This saved having a sticky iron bottom.
I then ironed on wing pieces cut from freezer paper. And below, the body and breast pieces.


Everything is cut and ready to be sewn with #8 perle cotton cut to 48 inches (I know it sounds like a lot but you'll use it because you'll go around both sides of the underbody.)
I made sure the wings were lined up.
I liked a simple stitch for the wings, as you can see below.

I started to sew the body together under the beak. Then it's easy to position the breast when you get to the underside.
I went around the top of the whole body till I met up with the underside where I attached the breast piece and sewed it on one side,

went around to the other side until I had a hole small/large enough to stuff it.

Finished, but not stuffed.

I sewed a ribbon on with two very small buttons, mismatched if possible, and eyes.

I got this pattern from a neighbor who got HERS from some of her church friends. They used old sweaters for their birds and they were really cute, but the wings were very floppy and I don't have that many old sweaters around. I DO have felt! The possibilities are endless and I've seen other cute little birds on blogs.