Little Birds: 26 Handmade Projects to Sew, Stitch, Quilt & Love
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About this ebook
Whether you’re looking for the perfect handmade gift or you want to create your own menagerie, the 26 craft projects in Little Birds will let your imagination take flight! Featuring designs by Mika Yamamura, Robin Kingsley, Heidi Allred and others, this volume covers a range of styles, from artistic to folksy to whimsical.
These beginner-friendly projects work well with scraps, fat quarters, and upcycled fabrics. They also feature a variety of materials and embellishments. From budgies to owls to peacocks, these feathered friends will make your heart sing!
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Book preview
Little Birds - Design Collective
introduction
Like many of you who have picked up this book, I have a love of fabric and sewing that goes back more years than I care to remember. When my passion became my career in my role as the Acquisitions Editor for Stash, the most time-consuming (and the most enviable) aspect of my work became searching for talented individuals and inviting them to write books for us.
I am constantly looking for inspiration and drooling over the exciting creations I have seen in magazines, at craft fairs, and all over the Internet. Over time, I have seen my share of the odd and irregular (and just plain weird), but what I long for is a stunning project that is beautiful and sweet—perfect for gifting, decorating, or displaying. And then I started seeing the most amazing birds take form at the hands of some truly awesome fabric artists.
This book represents the work of some of these designers and showcases projects they have created featuring their birds. This is the first book in a series of titles called Design Collective. In this series, I have invited a group of clever artists who have taken pieces of cloth or yarn to amazing levels and have asked them to share one of their most loved projects in our book. Within these pages you will find quilts, soft sculpture, embroidery, and even a bit of knitting!
All of these projects will make you feel like an artist and will inspire you to learn new skills and work with a variety of materials. Each includes detailed step-by-step instructions so that you can create the project just as the designer did, or you can take off on your own flight of fancy. Some of the projects are simple, and some a bit more of a challenge, but all are whimsical, handsome, lovely little creations. I hope you enjoy making this entire flock of little birds.
Susanne Woods
Little Birds Mobile
FINISHED SIZE OF BIRDS: 6½″ × 3″ × 2″
Dangle these little birds from a wreath as shown here, or prop them on a branch and hang it on a wall. One bird can nest in the wreath. You can also use the birds individually as pincushions or decorations.
WEBSITES
www.barijonline.com
www.barij.typepad.com (blog)
Bari is a product/textile designer and owner of Bari J. designs, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. To date, she has created two fabric lines for Windham Fabrics—Full Bloom and Art Journal. She is currently working on a book for C&T Publishing.
MATERIALS AND CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS
Patterns are on page 101. Make 8 birds.
Fabric scraps in several prints and colors, each at least 8″ × 3″, for the bird bodies, gussets, and wings:
Cut 16 bird bodies (8 and 8 reversed).
Cut 8 gussets.
½ yard fusible woven cotton interfacing such as Form Flex for the bird body:
Cut 16 bird bodies of interfacing (8 and 8 reversed).
Cut 8 gussets of interfacing.
Polyester batting or fiberfill for stuffing
6″ × 6″ piece of muslin or scrap fabric for the nest
Double-sided fusible web for the wings
Wire for the bird wings
Faux branches and leaves, or a pretty wreath
Doll-maker’s needle
Spray starch
Yarn in several colors to hang the birds
MAKE THE BIRDS
1. Follow the manufacturer’s directions to attach interfacing to the wrong side of each bird body and gusset.
2. Using a pencil, mark each tip of the gusset at ¼″, as indicated on the pattern. This will be where you stop and start sewing.
3. Place the gusset on top of the bird, right sides together along the belly of the bird, as shown in Figure 1 below. Note: You’ll sew one-half of the gusset to one bird body, and then sew the other half to a reversed bird body.
Figure 1
4. Starting at one of the dots, sew a ¼″ seam to the other dot, backstitching at each end.
5. Fold the gusset down, and place the other bird body on it, lining it up along the belly of the bird, right sides together, as shown in Figure 2. Attach the second half of the gusset to the second body of the bird with a ¼″ seam. Start where you stopped sewing the other half of the gusset and stop where you started sewing, backstitching at each end.
Figure 2
Sew the two halves of the bird together
1. Leaving a 2″ gap in the top of the tail, sew a ¼″ seam from one corner of the gusset to the other, backstitching at each end.
2. Turn the bird right side out through the opening you left.
3. Stuff well with batting or fiberfill. It’s helpful to use the end of a paintbrush to pull the tail through all the way and to stuff the tail. Slipstitch the opening