It's been like that since Spring started here last 21st :D, I couldn't take a pic when it hailed
(is it that the correct form of the verb?) though but I like these days... I honestly thought it was going to be all hot and humid and people kissing everywhere... but it's not that bad, thanks to these rainy days, cheesy people are inside their houses and I don't have to see them! Other than that, I've been with an annoying cold, changing weather is a killer.
I've made a big improve on
the mother's day project, I knitted these 2 birdies in a few hours the other day, and then I added details. For a moment I was a little... uhm disappointed about how the yellow birdie turned out, well both of them don't look like
the original, their heads are not that round, my guess is because of: the yarn or the needles or the filling and/or my hands since
it's my first time with double pointed needles.
But back to the yellow one... it looked so weird and while I was staring at it with a blank face, my brother came and said: "hey, what are you making?"; "a bird", I answered; "...."; "exactly, it doesn't look like a bird!", I said, and then he pointed out the obvious: "uhm maybe with a beak and eyes...".
Going from weirdo to bird with just a beak.
[Interesting language mistake: I actually wrote peak a few times because my head is translating from Spanish, peak means pico in Spanish and pico means, both peak and beak, I wonder what the relation is, if there is any, I guess it's like book and cook, no relation]
For the beaks I used these wooden sticks people use to eat chinese food (I'm not fond of oriental food but my brother and his gf truly are, there were tons of this sticks in a kitchen drawer!). To make the orange bird beak I carved one taking off the angles and then I used water with a bit of brown paint to tint the other beak, which I carved too and then sanded to make it smoother. For the eyes I used little black beads.
To make the feet I used aluminium wire because I have no chance of going outside and look for the kind of branches the original birds feet are made of and also I wanted something I could easily bend because of what's coming next. So I used round pliers and cut 3 pieces and then twisted them, I also cut a 4th one with a smaller curl
(uh how do you call that "curl" made with a round plier?) to make the foot
look more real, and also because I wanted to give the bird more balance. Lastly I made a final loop/curl so when I apply the white glue it'd stay in that hole and stick better to the filling.
In some kind of light bulb moment, I had the idea of making a stand for the birds, and then the ideas began to flash. So I went to this flower shop I have like a block away, and I bought a piece (more like a slice) of log, a little basket that it's perfect to make a nest and moss to cover the glue later on.
I glued with hot glue a piece of black felt to the base of the log and I had my brother drilled 2 "holes" so then I could stick there 2 sticks and then glue on them 2 pieces more, all made of awesome chinese food sticks tinted with the watery brown paint, I glued those 2 pieces so that there would be a gap, so the 4th leg of the foot could get in there and the bird could stand on its own.
On the pic there is another stick glued to the log, I'm not sure if I'm keeping that, it's still beta :p
Also there's the fabric I'm going to use to make a cloth for the nest, which it's going to be used to hold sweets or jewelry whatever my mom wants to use it for.
I still need to sew the yellow birdie's eyes. For some reason the orange one looks "birdier" than the yellow but maybe it's just me.
