Hello! How are you today? How were your pancakes? Have you given anything up for Lent?
Well, here in West Sussex things are moving along. My daughter has two teeth on the bottom that you know about and now she has two teeth coming through in the top. This means that when she is in bed with me in the morning and I’m not fully awake I have to be VERY CAREFUL if I feel her hot little mouth wrapping itself around my index finger. I still want to have an index finger you see and she can bite, hard!
The recent sunshiny days have filled my home with some much needed light and airiness. I’ve had the doors open to get rid of all the recent cooking smells, lots of curry, and the fact that we get up and I put the twins down when it is still light has made me very happy indeed. I love the end of Winter, don’t you?
The next few weeks are going to see lots of goings on here and so I’m getting ready for them. Events, gatherings, photo shoots and celebrations. Oh, and a little celebration called Easter!
I love Easter. I love the change in colours and welcome the greens, yellows and pinks. I enjoy the chocolate, the Simnel Cake and the Easter Egg hunts, remember this from last year? But most of all I like the build up to Easter. The decorating, the fiddling, the experimenting and the creative side of it all. So that’s the deal here at Cherry Menlove for the next few weeks. I’m starting my Easter prep now and I’d love you to join in, try out the projects and let me know how you get on. If there is ANYTHING you’d like to know about, have the recipe for or want to try this Easter then leave a comment and I’ll see if I can’t get a few of your requests up here on the site. Perhaps it’s already on my long list of upcoming posts but I hope that if you love Easter celebrations as much as I do then you’ll find something you like.
Today I’m starting with fabric birds. We hear the birds loud and clear in the mornings here and I must say it’s good to have them back. There are nests being built all over the garden, I know this because I watch them. The Blue Tits currently have a whole operation going on right outside my office window. They are making their homes safe and cosy for their children as I try to make mine safe and cosy for my two.
These fabric birds will be used to decorate in some way and as I make my way through the next few weeks you’ll see them pop up. They don’t take that long to put together once you get going and you can make as many or as few as you wish.
What you will need for this project:
- Your choice of fabric for the bird(s)
- Felt, for the beak and for the wings
- Embroidery thread for the eyes & hanging loop
- Thread to match your fabric
- Toy filling/wadding
- Needles
- Scissors
- Pins
- Sewing machine (although they can be stitched by hand)
- Twigs from your garden or local park (for the legs)
- Draw and cut out a bird shaped template onto some card then draw around the template (twice) onto the back of your chosen fabric.
- Cut the fabric bird templates out.
- Pin the two bird shaped pieces of fabric together so that the correct side of the fabric is facing inwards.
- Mark, in pencil, a cross on either side of the bird where you would like the eyes positioned.
- Use embroidery thread to sew an eye on each piece of the fabric, using the cross as a guide.
- Pin the bird together again (inside out) and machine around the edges and leaving an opening of about 2-3 cm so that the bird can be turned back the right way and stuffed with filling.
- Turn the bird back the right way (you may need to use the end of a pencil or similar to poke the birds tail back through.)
- Stuff the bird with toy filling/wadding until the bird is firm to the touch.
- Take the felt and cut out two triangles, the same size, for the birds beak.
- Sew the sides together leaving the bottom open
- Stuff the beak with toy filling/wadding
Tip: As the beak is so small you may need to use something thin and long to push the wadding in, I used the end of fine paintbrush to stuff my beak.
- Sew the open end of the stuffed beak on to the fabric bird.
- Cut out two triangular shapes of felt for the wings.
- Pin the wings on either side of the bird and then sew on in place
- For the birds legs I used twigs from my garden.
- Cut them to the required length and push them up into the wadding/filling through the hole that has been left open
- Stitch the hole together by hand securing the twig legs in place at the same time
- Use some embroidery thread to make a hanging loop on the neck if the bird and secure in knot
They can hang in branches of Pussy Willow.
Inside in a vase or on the table.
Or, if you live in warmer climes they can go outside and decorate a terrace or corner of the garden.
I’m working on an Easter centerpiece so I think a great many of the birds will end up there. But they also make great gifts and can go in to a favor bag if you have a wedding or celebration that you are arranging.
Wherever you put them they will keep. Unlike the chocolate that you’ll be given. This means that should you make them this year you’ll be bringing them back out again for many more years to come. I love the thought of that.
And I love you. Have a fantastic day and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Cherry x
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[...]How To Make Fabric Birds for Easter « Cherry Menlove[...]…
What a lovely idea! I love your website it has some really great ideas for some lovely things! Thanks!
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[...]How To Make Fabric Birds for Easter « Cherry Menlove[...]…
So your search for chic(k) was a success?!
(slightly ashamed of the ‘Dad joke’ but couldn’t resist, sorry
They are sooo cute. Love them. xxx
,,,what a charming lil tweet,,,i think i shall make mine soon; after all spring time is peeking around the corner,,,(smile)
Ah it was the bestest Pancake Day ever for me as my little 3 year old lad helped me to do it all whilst my 11 month old watched and played. We weighed, sieved, cracked, poured, beat and even flipped together-a big fat TICK on my ‘one day I wish… list’ completed. Yey. Love the fabric birds I’ll be making some of these for my Easter centrepiece-gorgeous make. Thank you as always for my daily dose x
Amanda
Really cute fabric birds! Are not new baby teeth the cutest things ever? The change from a gummy smile to a toothy grin is just precious. I would so love to see what a proper English garden party looks like and what the menu would be and what sorts of activities might be set up. Or if that’s too much for this time of year, I would love to learn how to make malted fruit bread. As an au pair in the UK back in the 1970′s, I discovered French’s Malted Fruit Bread.
Vicki
I would LOVE to make Malted Malt Loaf for you and I shall do it soon. With regards to the garden party you may have to wait a bit longer for that but it will be worth it, I promise! Cx
My Cherry. Easter at your house sure is sunny and bright. I love your Craft today. I hope you will be writing a Book soon. Surfing through your site today highlights how good you are. Get writing missy.
Martha (New York)
Hi just a new follower – loving your makes. I am really new to this sewing malarky (lol) after getting a sewing maching for Christmas just wondering if you could point me in the right direction for a bird template – many thanks xx
I drew mine freehand on to card, don’t worry about the shape too much. Cx
Hi Cherry,
Love the birds and the fabric – have got a bit of a thing about paisley lately… and navy blue as well (so much more forgiving for us blondies than black!). Anyway – I digress! You can just feel the springtime in your photos and the evenings getting lighter mean it’s on it’s way good and proper!
Lovely golden 5.15pm sunshine streaming through the window now – i’m off to stick my face in it!
xx
I stuck my face in it yesterday. Instant happiness. Cx
I may have missed it but have you posted a hot cross bun recipe? I get fed up with the shop bought ones. Love the birdies
I make little fabric birds for an Easter tree. Bring sticks back from a walk, put them in a vase, hang eggs and make birds for everyone. If you fill them with lavender people can use them in wardrobes or coat pegs.Kids love them if one side of the bird is awake and the other side is asleep.
sweet sweet sweet! love this idea! I made fabric eggs one year, and love to get them out each year now. I might have to make a few birdies to go with them on the Easter tree.
I am giving up making pancakes for Lent, because I am rubbish at them! I didn’t have time to make them yesterday (ended up cleaning the kitchen instead), so made them for breakfast instead.
and then I remembered how bad I am at making them. I follow the recipe yet I still can’t make them. So I am officially giving them up for Lent!
Been feeling springy here too. Made some pretty paper decorations this morning, and they turned out quite nicely!
enjoy your day, oh, and yes, baby teeth are sharp. I was still breastfeeding when the teethies started appearing and Oh. My. God. the pain!!!!!!!
I LOVE your paper decorations (could not comment as it only allowed Google accounts to sign in) but they are so lovely I may make some myself! Cx
thank you! That means a lot coming from you. You have absolutely made my day! x
Well no pancakes for us last night, we’re giving up eating-out for Lent and as a result felt that we were in desperate need of one last hurrah so at 6 we decided to drive 2 hours to the small town where we first lived together and went to our fav restaurant there. Pancakes tonight and homemade meals for the rest of Lent, so I’ll be hoping for delicious recipes on the blog in the coming weeks. Also I love your table setting so a few of those wouldn’t go amiss.
Have a great day!
Hi Cherry,
Really loving the fabric that you used on the birds!
Where did you get it from? Do you have a link for the shop?
Gemma x
Hi Gemma,
We bought our fabric for the Easter Birds from a store called the Eternal Maker.
They do also have a website:http://www.eternalmaker.com/
Jodie
x
This post is really for the birds Cherry! LOVE them! Such cute details with the little wings and eyes and twiggy legs. It is such a wonderful project for children to do as well.
In fact, I prefer your birds to the ones I did here at bungalowonbank!
Happy Day!
lovely.
the birds are looking so springlike…i love the soft colours.
I linked to your tutorial on my blog – thanks for sharing!
many greetings, doro K.
Well I dutifully made my pancakes last night ,nice and thin with loads of lemon and sugar and they were grrreat. As for Lent, I decided to give up chocolate along with my chocoholic husband but quickly discovered that I had so much chocolate in the house and more champagne truffles arriving with the Ocado man on Saturday for a dinner party, that I decided that was a bad idea as it would all go to waste. But I love the idea of Ashleighs about taking up something positive. So I’ll think on that one. Now those birds legs Cherry are something else. Sooooo cute. I wish I could buy all these things from you as I’m too lazy to make them. How about a Cherry Menlove shop? When’s that book coming out?
Hi Cherry, very cute birds. I recently gave these a go as Xmas decorations – they are very easy and very pretty too
http://sewliberated.typepad.com/sew_liberated/2009/02/birds-on-a-branch-in-the-babys-room.html
Happy Weds
Kate x
Tim missed his pancakes because he was on a training day and lost his coat (plus wallet and keys). Thankfully the training day was at the hospital near my parents and so they fed him (pasty, they never do pancakes) and my dad brought him home to pick up his spare car key and took him back to pick up his car. Poor darling, got home at 9pm, too late for pancakes, and he was so gutted! So he’ll be having his pancakes today (shhhh)
As for Lent… no idea what to give up. I am limited to what I can eat (can’t eat wheat, too much dairy, caffeine etc) so I hate taking something else away. I would say I’d give up worrying, but I know I would fail straight away on that front! I think I might have to skip it this year…
Easter crafts wise, I’d like to see things for eating outside… Easter is late this year and usually by the end of April the weather is so much nicer, I’d like to think we could eat in our little garden some evenings. So some ideas for that would be much appreciated xx
Hi Amanda, You know, you don’t have to give something up for Lent. You can also use it as a time to take up something positive, or to commit to something that you wouldn’t usually do.
A lovely Post today Cherry. I bought my little girl a sewing machine for christmas and she’s stitched together most of my spare fabric. Your how-to today is a great one for us to do together.
Enjoy Spring.
Jasmine. x
Hi Cherry,
You’re ideas for Easter look lovely. I love Easter too, but my request is more about Lent. Could you post some Fish Recipes for the Lenten meatless Fridays? That would really be appreciated
The birds made me smile, in a feel-good way. Especially their cute twig legs.
Yay, someone noticed the twig legs!!