I think everything started when I signed myself for the Birdie Swap (disclaimer :) : this bird isn't for the swap; it's to settle down my creative itch). I started to search in the net for the inspirations, pictures of sewn birds, softies, felt birds, ornaments and whatever you can find when you type 'bird ornament' or 'sewn bird' or 'bird pattern' in google. There were some free pdf patterns available, but somehow it wasn't for me. I had to do something else. So I started. I started with thinking what I want to achieve. How it should look like.
It was hard to imagine for me where to start. I decided to make a sculpture first. To plan the pattern, shape of my bird and where to piece the fabric. The one on the photo is already reshaped, cause the first attempt was not so good. You see many lines... finally I did something completely different than I had drawn:
Here is already 3rd try to make the bird. This one looks like chicken, but 100% better than the first 2 ones ;) I started with felt, couse it's better for hand sewing and you don't have to plan the seam allowance:
another try... still some thing were to correct. The big minus of starting with felt is that it's completely different from cotton. After I had the pattern based on felt ready, it worked out that I have to change it completely for the cotton.
I don't have any photos of the stages of creation the cotton bird, I was just throwing away the ugly birdies.
But this is the 'almost' final version. It took me few days to create this bird but I'm absolutely proud and happy of the result. It has wired legs, fabric beak and embroidered eyes.
Now... to check if I did well... a riddle: which bird is it?
EDIT: Tuome was the first to answer :) It's an eurasian jay.
That means that I didn't do such a bad job ;)
photo from: http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Eurasian_Jay
