Making a Fabric Bird From Concept to Design to Finish ~ A Sewing Project

I’m still working on my nest for the nest swap.   I haven’t received my exchange partner yet, but I’m well into the project.  I’ve made my nests and eggs and I just about finished up my bird.  Here’s some photos and descriptions for my bird.  I’ve been using up materials I’ve had on hand at home.  I’m trying to reuse, recycle and destash.

Sometimes the sketchbook is just not within reach when I get an idea.  I hope Google doesn’t get mad at me for using some junk mail they sent to me.  I have a few scattered pieces of scrap papers with various conceptual drawings all over them.  I’m showing you the final sketch I made before I traced the image onto a blank piece of paper. 

After tracing my pattern, I increased the size all around for the seam allowance when I sewed.  You can see the pattern in the picture above.  The pattern piece for the wing is under the bird body pattern.

I had already decided that I was going to try and use some of my fabric scraps.  I knew I wanted to make a crow or raven.  Since the bird is small I decided to make the pattern simple.  It was easiest to make the pattern out of white fabric and paint it.  I used osnaburg.  I cut out two bird bodies and 4 wings. 

Above is my fully painted crow.  I still need to do a little clean up on the paint and trim some loose threads.   She’s standing in a pile of straw because I chose to make her without feet.  I think I’ll be gluing her into the nest, so her feet won’t be seen.

 I’m still trying to decide how much I want to embellish.  I purposely chose a crow because I know they love to collect shiny treasures.