Sunday, September 26

Stormy Spring and what a big difference a beak makes - Birds project part 1

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.

Photobucket

4 comments:

  1. I thought the birds are smaller (about 2 inches), but if they had beaks made of wooden sticks, I guess they're pretty big.

    You have spring... here fall has just begun. And then will be winter, and again frost, snow, lots of clothes you must to put on :( I wish I had a house in Brasil or southern France at least.

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  2. Yeah, they are like the size of my hand.
    Do you use inches in Poland?
    Yeah, spring and summer and heat and sun, :/ I don't like the sound of that.
    I like winter better but we don't have snow in my city so I guess I understand why it bothers you. Brazil is nice, I've been there, beautiful beaches but it gets tiring after a while hehe.

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  3. No, we use centimeters. I seemed you use inches, so I used this measure.

    Yeah, snow is what bothers me the most, especially in January, when it melts. There is so much moist in the air and is so awful!
    I've heard this year there was snow in Argentina. I saw some cute goats standing in a foot in snow! :(

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  4. Oh, that's cool, we use centimeters too, it's just most of the stuff I read online is in American English so when I write in English I'm kind of set up to use that measure, although I don't know much of it, just that 1 inch is almost 3 cm and a yard is almost 2 meters :p

    Yeah, it snowed here this year but not in some cities, like where I live now, it was pretty big in the villages near my hometown though. and yeah poor animals, either is extremely cold or extremely hot or too dry, crazy weather.

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