What to do with the skirt offcuts - oh no that dreaded C word

Yep - Christmas.  That's the one.

Not sure you are all thinking of Christmas yet but in our house it is banned from being mentioned before the first of November, but now of course it is time to start considering such important things like the decoration theme for the tree, which of our poultry is going to have the honour of gracing the table, and of course who I can cross off my homemade card list this year.

So to get me in the mood, we decided (Thea and I that is - Brendan has no choice in the matter), that the theme this year for the tree is au naturel, and for the table, red reindeers.

From the skirt that I butchered the other day to make a bag, I had some of the lovely material left over, really pretty beige brown floral and peacock design and so I set to making some birds for the tree.

This is a really simple stencil, cut out facing left and right on the pattern material and some plain backing material, then some wings also cut from the pattern material.

Pin the wing in place on the pattern side and then just running stitch in a bright contrasting colour cotton all the way around, adding a couple of bars to look like feathers.

 A quick cross for an eye and the bird decoration is done.

Pin the right side of the pattern material to the right side of the backing material and machine sew all the way around except for about an inch left open on the bottom.

Turn the birds the right way by stuffing them through the hole with your finger, and pull out to the hem all the way round to shape the tail, head and beak.

Then stuff the bird through the small hole you left open, once filled, just close the hole off with a few blanket stitches.  For that little bit extra I also added a couple of heads of dried lavender into the stuffing so that they will smell lovely on the tree too.  To keep them smelling fresh from now to December, just seal them once they are made into a ziploc bag or a sealed plastic container.




I then added a couple of chicken feathers, through the stitches on the wings to finish my Christmas decoration birdies off.  I am sure that the kittens are really going to appreciate the effort I put into these.