Tutorials

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Wednesday Craft Group - Fleece Birds

Today we made these beautiful fleece birds - my nephew took them for a fly around the neighbour's garden when we got home...he liked the yellow one best.

Once a little bird went hop, hop, hop,
And I said, "little bird, will you stop, stop, stop."
I ran to the window to say "how do you do?"
But she shook her little tail and away she flew.

Want to make one? here I'll show you how - tis child's play


You will need a thin length of wool roving no longer than from your inside wrist to your inside elbow, a thicker piece about a third to half that length, a bit of crochet type cotton, a scrap diamond shaped bit of felt, a stick of some kind and a sharp needle.

Take the long bit of fleece and tie a knot in the centre, don't pull too tight - that is your bird's head.

pull out a super skinny bit of fleece from under the knot and wrap it around under the head to form a neck
open up the two halves and put the short segment between to make your wings (my big girl wanted to add colour so she fluffed out a bit of yellow too)

then pull out another skinny bit and wrap it behind the wings in the same way you did the neck; this will form your body segment.


Thread your needle and knot the end of your cotton. Put your needle in under the neck segment pulling gently to bury the knot and come out in the head segment where you want the beak to be. Poke your needle through the centre of your piece of felt and back in again and pull the beak close to the head


put the needle back into the head where you came out and come out again around the centre back - this will be the balancing point - tie it to a stick and you are done.


see child's play!

11 comments:

erin said...

This is a great little craft to do with kids & an awesome toy for little ones! Thanks!

Linda said...

These are lovely Shannon:) Thank you:)

gardenmama said...

they are so sweet!
we made butterflies like this at the waldorf school may festival. the children loved them!

Anonymous said...

Those are beautiful!

Ariella said...

Perfect project for my kids. Thank you!!

Jenna Millsap said...

Oh wow! That is so cute! It looks really simple too. I bet my little ones would really enjoy making those. Thanks for the tutorial. When I try it I'll feature it on my blog and let you know how it went. Thanks!!

WonderWhyGal said...

Oh, I LOVE it! I'm always looking for fiber crafts for farm visitors...I am going to add this to the list. Perfect for little ones to help with and not too hard for the parent to help finish up.

Thank you for sharing.

Jen said...

Found your post through Linda's group - love this tutorial! I really like that kids can do it (sans needles) so we'll have to try this today! Thank you for sharing on Natural Suburbia!

Blessings,
Jen

TwigandToadstool said...

how awesome!!! I'm off to restock my roving next weekend...I think we'll have to make some of these sweet birds first thing!
xox maureen

Amanda Pedro said...

thanks for the great tutorial. we made butterflies the same way.

http://latenightstamper.blogspot.com/2010/07/roving-butterflies.html

Amanda
By Hook & Thread

Cynthia said...

I just found this, while looking for a craft for our playgarden group tomorrow, this is perfect! Thank you for sharing