Burlap in Flight.....

This little guy has been on my mind for month's, he was supposed to be done and introduced in Houston at IQF, but once again I just didn't make that date.  Sometimes we just go out to lunch at Chili's and brainstorm....I know odd choice, but it works for us to be away from the studio, no distractions and things just come to us.  When we brainstormed for Houston we came up with way too many ideas and some of them just didn't get done...him being one of them.

This morning as I washed out several batches of our hand-dyed silk hankies and perle cotton, I mulled over the best way to approach how to make him.  I pulled this pile of burlap out, decided to go with scraps versus the red right off the bat, got to save that for creating more once I'd worked out the kinks. 

When we conceived the idea of creating a burlap bird we planned for him to have wire legs, so I knew he needed to have a gusset so that legs have some place to fit in.  Recently we were walking through a shop and saw bird ornaments, I just knew an ornament was what he needed to be at this time of the year.

 Every time you try out something new you learn a lot....today I learned that working with Burlap in such a small item is harder than I thought.  Oh I've got lots of tips for you.  Edge stitch all pieces before sewing the body together, the tail is impossible to sew right sides together, then turn right sides out...soooooo....the tail wound up having a cotton facing that I could slit, fuse back together and then be attached to the bird.  Sometimes a girls gotta do, what a girls gotta do.

Love how the little guy turned out....now I can use the red and  make more for our Christmas tree.  After watching the Cardinals playing in our yard this weekend they will be perfect, hopefully they will not drive our puppy crazy.