Bird mobile

I am making little mobiles to sell at a local craft fair. They're all hand-sewn (because I'm not that neat on the sewing machine). I used a simple straight stitch around the edge in a contrasting embroidery thread.

The finished mobile

I used a variety of old fabrics with complimentary colours / textures / patterns.
This little birds are made from the fabrics old, off-cut and previously loved.

I cut out a paper template for the bird's body and for the wings, pinned it onto the fabric, cut it out then sewed it together. When I got almost all the way around I stuffed the bird with 'cushion stuffing' (not sure what the technical word for that is) and finished it off.

So there it is, my bird-y mobile!

Birds in flight

This image was taken over a year ago now but I was looking through  my prints yesterday and suddenly felt very inspired by it.

I began with doing a loose sketch trying to give an impression of movement, concentrating on the shapes birds make when in flight.

I think the image works well but I wanted to take it further and to really get across the notion of flight and movement and freedom of flying.

I grabbed scissors and some old brown packing paper and set to work. I folded the paper, used the shapes of the birds from my sketch and cut out the same shape several times, glued them together and threaded them onto a bamboo skewer.

They're flying from my doorframe, they float and twirl when ever I walk by.I am so happy with it that I have made one for my sister too.