BIRDS (RED CARDINAL and other examples)
What you need:
Red, black, pale yellow felt, embroidery floss in the same colours, two black beads, stuffing, twine.
How to make it:
Following the pdf pattern cut the felt pieces (from the pieces in the picture you get a half-bird).
Put the yellow triangle on the beak and the black piece next to it, to make the black spot they have on their head. Stitch them to the red piece with little stitches, using black and yellow thread.
Attach a bead to the black spot as you see in the picture.
Now you need to make the second half-bird so repeat these steps another time.
Sew the two half-birds together using red floss and blanket stitch. Sew them from the beak to the base of the tail.
You'll get a red cardinal with a cloven beak: the two yellow triangles need to be sewn together with yellow floss. Now the bird's getting less frightening!
Now you need to sew the belly of our bird and stuff it nicely. I don't think you need further explanations.
After stuffing it, use some black floss to stitch the two black pieces together, over and under the beak, to make the black spots melt in one.
The last thing you need are legs: you can get them from twine in the blink of an eye!
Take a piece of twine (long at least 12 cm) and bend it like a "y" as in the first picture below.
Then make a knot that takes the short arms of the "y", as in the second picture.
Cut the twine eyelet that has formed to get three toes and cut the longest piece of twine to make it shorter (unless you want to make a stork or a heron!).
These long legs are perfect for birds meant to be hanging. If you want a bird that tands on its legs you should use wire.
In the case of the red cardinal (and all other crouching birds) you only have to keep the feet and get rid of the leg.
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Starting from the pattern of the cardinal you can create lots of other birds. For example you could get rid of the tuft and draw a rounder head.
You can create hanging birds by sewing the body pieces together without the belly (as you see in the picture below).
