Hello friends! While visiting my Father-in-law for Thanksgiving, I whipped up a little birdy, handstitched using wool felt. The night before our flight I threw a few pieces of felt in my suitcase and during a naptime, this is what I came up with!
Photography was all done indoors in bad lighting as quickly as possible so I could get this finished.
First: I drew a birdy on some paper! You can download this drawing HERE.
Ok, this step is obvious, right, cut it out!
Then use that piece to cut pieces from wool felt. I had brown and pink felt handy - have fun picking colors.
For the beak, add about a quarter inch tab so you have room to stitch it on later.
Ok, once all the felt is cut, we can sew!
Place the wool felt birdy pieces so you have two pieces facing opposite directions, and layout the other felt pieces so they mirror each other.
Choose whatever color you like embroidery floss and straight stitch on a wing. I used a slightly darker pink so the stitches would show and be decorative.
Once I started stitching, I decided a few rows of stitching would be pretty, so went around each wing three times. Totally optional to do whatever you want here.
Next, the beak needs to be sewn on. Here is a pic of the WRONG side of the birdy, so you can see how the beak is stitched on. I used brown to MATCH the birdy this time, so the stitches wouldn't show up as much on the outside.
Stitch the beak on both birdy pieces, making sure they line up and are still mirroring each other.
Now for the eyes. Using embroidery thread, I pulled the needle from the middle of the circle, and did stitches out from there, making little stars in the center of the circles for eyes.
Instead of felt, you could use buttons for eyes, assuming the toy is for a child old enough where they won't be a choking hazard of course!
I almost didn't give this birdy any legs. But thought better of it and cut a couple legs out of felt, and sewed them to the bottom of one birdy piece, with the matching brown thread, just like I used for the beak. The legs were too long so I trimmed them AFTER sewing them on.
Ok, time to stitch the birdy together. START with the beak. If I had grey matching thread, I would have used it here. But alas that wasn't the case so I used black. Use a whipstitch (great tutorial to whipstitch here). Once the beaks are sewn together, stuff just the beak. If you don't, it can be hard to get stuffing in the beak properly once the birdy is sewn together.
Keep on whipstitching around the birdy, leaving about a two inch opening across the top back of the bird.
Then enlist a little helper to help finish the stuffing! Delilah recruited her Daddy to help to, so this was a whole family affair. She put little tiny bits of stuffing in the birdy at a time. So it took a while. But we didn't mind, this birdy was a labor of love!
Hey - we stuffed a bird on Thanksgiving - perfect! Once all stuffed up, sew him closed continuing that whipstitch.
Now, those feet! This birdy's feet need some attention!
A few snips with the scissors and VOILA!
So there you have it! A soft felt birdy to love.
Hope you liked the birdy tutorial. It was quite relaxing to sit and handsew him up while Delilah slept, and was a joy to have her be my little helper to get him all stuffed and finished. I hope if you make one you have as much fun as we did.
Hope you liked the birdy tutorial. It was quite relaxing to sit and handsew him up while Delilah slept, and was a joy to have her be my little helper to get him all stuffed and finished. I hope if you make one you have as much fun as we did.
Happy Holidays,
Janimal
