My crafting week | All about the birds!

Meet Monty, Alice, Jack and Lily. Now safely gifted, I can share this year’s ’Teacher Gifts’.
There has been a distinct theme to my crafting over the last week - birds! We are little bit bird mad in this house so I guess it’s no surprise. I thought it would be fun in this week’s post to share with you what I’ve been up to.

Knitted birds
School broke up at the end of last week. I don’t hold with the generic ‘give a teacher a gift voucher’ approach to end of term gifts. I would much rather give some time and make a handmade gift that I (hope!) they’ll enjoy and will remind them of R.

The four members of teaching staff who have been with Puffins (R’s class) this year have been left in no doubt that he LOVES birds and would quite like to be an ornithologist when he’s older. It therefore seemed appropriate that I should knit them little birds as thank you gifts. I used the basic Arne and Carlos pattern and leftover RiverKnits 4-ply BFL yarn. R choose the most appropriate yarn for each person, an interesting insight in itself! Each bird takes around 5g of yarn and barely any toy stuffing. I already had small beads and embroidery floss in my stash so the project was inexpensive but very appropriate. I bought some stiffened florist wire to display the birds but they’d work equally well with a hanging loop added.

R named the birds and in wrapping the birds, we left a note for each teacher telling them who they had to look after.

Project bag
I am on a quest to improve my very basic sewing skills this year. Due to health issues and family commitments attending sewing lessons isn’t really an option but thankfully You Tube is full of videos and tutorials. Whilst I have very little patience for crochet and knitting tutorials - I’d rather read a book to learn a new yarn-based technique - I have been enjoying watching the odd sewing video and learning huge amounts each time I do.

Time seemed to escape me towards the end of term but last Sunday afternoon I disappeared into my craft room and made a bag! And a lined bag too! It is wonky and far from perfect, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be able to make one. Obviously, I used bird fabric. This bag makes me so happy I just can’t tell you!

I used my Gran’s ancient electric Singer sewing machine which makes it more special. My Gran is a huge influence on me and I miss her every day. She had a talent for using bluetak to fix almost anything. Whilst sewing away on Sunday afternoon I glanced at the machine and noticed for the first time that she’d fixed a wobbly bit of the sewing machine with bluetak too! Love you Gran!

Sketchbook Club Bird Cages
With the Summer holidays in full swing, R and I decided to do Jennie Maizel’s latest online sketchbook club module this week because, well, it had birds in it. R had reservations about birds being in cages but we pressed on. We had a really lovely afternoon. I find it so rewarding to help R learn more about art materials and techniques, as well as give him the opportunity to scratch his creative itch. It feels to me that art is a really good way to teach resilience and a lot of fun too! We ran out of steam so we haven’t finished but we will over the holidays.

If you haven’t tried one of Jennie’s modules, I really recommend you do. With written instructions and short videos they are really very accessible.

Robin socks
This week I have also cast-on a pair of Robin socks for R using beautiful self-striping yarn from Giddy Yarns (thank you Emma!) with contrasting cuffs, heels and toes in a coordinating mini from Lambington Lass. There isn’t much to show at the moment but I promise to when they’ve grown a little.


All in all, it’s been a birdy-kind of week. I wonder what next week will bring?  Happy Crafting! x