Felt Week: A Little Birdie

Angel, I finally needle-felted something!

Say hello to my little birdie:


In case you can't tell, it's a robin, along with a nest and 3 robin eggs.



I wanted to use this lovely little tutorial by Ornamentea and make a bird for Ben's nature table. Ben was absolutely fascinated by the tutorial videos. He watched them all and was very excited about my making this birdie. Since robins are all around us lately in Seattle, we decided to make the birdie a robin. Ben and I headed to the fabric store and got roving in a few extra colors to supplement the stash you had sent me, Angel!


This project came together really well. The tutorial is very clear and to the point (the only issue I had is that they forgot instructions for the bird's beak in the written tutorial, woops!). I like that it starts with the nest and then takes you through the steps to felt and assemble the bird.



Since the nest is larger and more spread out in shape, I really got the hang of poking that needle through the fibers. I started to get an understanding of how it works and an instinct for how to use the needle to shape things.


Then, I moved on to the larger parts of the bird: body and head. I made the body as instructed and added a thick tuft of orange on the belly of the bird, for the robin's colorful breast. Next were the wings, and by that point, I had figured out how to create shapes with the needle, so it felt pretty seamless.



The details were next, like eyes and beak. The eyes were a little tricky, I couldn't get them to stay on. It took some fiddling with the needle, but I finally got them to stick. For the beak, I kneaded a small piece of yellow roving with my finger and then needled it on the foam until it held its shape. I attached it to the bird's head by poking around the beak's base.


The tutorial calls for felt balls for the eggs, but I didn't have any. So I decided to make my own following the same instructions as for the bird's body, but in a smaller size. Easy peasy. I mixed sky blue and teal roving to resemble robin's egg blue.



Overall I think it turned out pretty well!! The one downside and obstacle to my making further needle-felted projects is our cat. Cali is determined to make this bird her own, and I fear it will end up living in the closet. She already ripped its head off before it was even finished. Good thing it was easy to needle it back on!

I had fun making this project! I loved the sculptural, 3-D aspect of shaping the nest and then the bird. Seeing it go from hairy roving to smooth felt with just pokes of a needle was nothing short of magical! The whole process was quick and pretty zen -- aside from the massive amount of bloody holes in my fingers. Goodness gracious, those needles are sharp!


What do you think of my robin? Dear readers, have you needle-felted anything, or would you like to? Tell us in the comments!

And psst, have you entered the fabulous giveaway by A Child's Dream Come True and Rainbow River Designs. Go here to check it out.

Great job Jenny! Your robin and nest turned out great. I think one of my first projects was also a robin and a nest! They're still around here somewhere. Can't wait to see what you try next!