Patchwork to save birds - and the environment. Tutorial.

It is spring - although it is still really cold here in Sweden. But the birds have already come back. The area next to my house is full of starlings, they nest in holes in the trees.

This reminded me of a sad thing that happened three years ago, my first spring in this flat. One of the starlings flew into the window and died.

I checked what we can do to keep them away from flying into the glass, and found that a black silhouette of a hawk is the usual solution. But who wants to look at a dark shape all day? So I made a shape, made it dark on one side and nice and colourful on the other. It was actually one of my first attempts at patchwork. It is hanging in my window ever since and we had no more accidents, thank God.

I though I would like to make one or two more, and that I can perhaps make a tutorial while I am at it. But please, don't expect something very precise, it is more a description of my own experimenting, that you can follow and make your own, if you want.


I made two pieces, using the method known as "quilt as you go". I used a very thin, iron-on batting (Vlieselin X50) on one bird, and on the other one something that is more an interfacing for bags to make them a bit sturdier - sorry, don't remember what it is. But I don't think it is very important what kind of batting or interfacing you use. It can also be something else, a piece of felt, for example, or perhaps some sturdy leftover fabric sprayed with starch. For the back, that needs to be dark, I used some old jeans, this way this also became a recycling project!

I am not very good at drawing but luckily there are thousands of such silhouettes on the internet to download and use. I used this one. I printed it on an A4 page, then enlarged with the photocopier to an A3 size (140 %).
(Later I realised that it was silly of me: I should have drawn a line around the bird, and only photocopy and enlarge the drawing - it was a waste of ink to print all that black.)

So, draw your shape or find one on the net you like and make it as big as you wish.

Cut around the shape and put it on the material you want to use as the base of your work: batting, interfacing, felt etc.

Draw around it and cut out the shape from the batting. Also gather some small pieces of fabric scraps, mostly strips. Make it randomly colourful as I did, or choose a colour scheme that suits your home.

Choose a piece of fabric that is long enough to cover one section of the bird. Put it down right side UP. I started in the middle, but I think it would work just as well starting at one of the wind tips, too.

Take your next piece and put it on top of the first one, matching one edge, right side facing DOWN. As you see, my fabric edges are not very straight, and it does not really matter.

Sew a 6 mm - 1/4 inch - seam allowance.

Flip the second piece up, and finger press well. This is one of the disadvantages of using an iron-on batting or interfacing: you cannot iron your pieces as you open them. (I did have some creases on my work because of that - but luckily they are not very visible.)
If you are using something that is not sticky, go ahead and iron your pieces as you go.

Continue in the same manner. I think it looks nicer if not all your fabric pieces are of the same width, and you slant them a little as you go. You don't even need to cut the fabric pieces in advance - just sew them and clip the seam allowance afterwards.

Soon you will have the whole shape covered with fabric pieces.

Cut around the shape, leaving about 1 cm of the fabric pieces overhanging the base.

Put it face down on a piece of denim - preferably (for the environment) from some old, worn jeans.

Pin, and sew around, trying to sew right next to your base shape. Leave a hole for turning it inside out!

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the next few steps. But it is not very difficult. :)

Cut around the shape once again, this time cutting the jeans. Clip the corners and curves. Turn it inside out, fold in the seam allowance of the opening, iron well, and topstitch all around - this way closing the hole, too.
I forgot to add a piece of ribbon before sewing them together, so I sewed it on from the outside - not very elegant.

Here it is all ready to hang:

With the ironing the batting got glued to the denim, so I did not need any quilting lines - this is why I chose them for the base. But if you want to use something that is not iron-on, you can add a few quilting lines to keep all the three layers together.


The second bird was made almost exactly the same way - only with the interfacing. I made the shape just a bit bigger, and planned my lines a bit more carefully in advance. I drew the lines I wanted to follow on the paper pattern, but not on the interfacing. I tried to follow them as good as I could just eyeballing it, without stressing too much about it.

This is what it looks like halfway done.

Put it on the denim face down, the same way as the first one, and sewed around. Only this time it was really hard. The interfacing did not want to move under the presser foot, it got stuck all the time. It was not my best sewing experience. Perhaps I should have got a teflon coated presser foot or something.

Anyway, I managed. Turned it inside out, folded in the seam allowance on the opening and ironed it well. Sewed a piece of ribbon on the tip of a wing to hang it with - this time remembered to do it from the inside. Then topstitched around the bird.

As you can see, the topstitching did not go very smooth either, it got stuck under the machine a few times. Luckily, it only shows on the denim side - and that side is only for the birds to see. I hope they will not complain. :)

Make some patchwork birds! Hang them in your windows, help the birds stay alive and at the same time create something cheerful for yourselves too look at.

Now I am thinking that this would look lovely in a kid's room, too, in any shape, not only birds. Hm…

I hope you guys will find this tutorial helpful. Happy sewing.

Spring bird freebie - and some more sewing progress.

Hello, everyone, I hope spring has finally arrived at your doorstep - we are still waiting. And waiting… But it cannot be long now :)


Here are a few pictures of my further sewing experiments.
Tried to make a CosPlay costume, for the anime character called Shirayuki Mizore. This was an assignment for the university course. The course is not only about textiles but also about the pedagogy of teaching textile crafts and I like it a lot. We had to choose a topic that would be interesting for our students, so that´s how I ended up with the anime. I myself didn´t know anything about it before.
Anyway, this is what I came up with. The colours are not really good, I was working after a picture from the net, and only found a description of her clothes with all the colours when it was too late.

I sewed the pleated skirt (again, not perfect but perhaps not too bad), and I also made a very simple A-line mini-skirt. We had to think about our students, and I believe the pleated skirt, even the Simplicity skirt with the plaid fabric (see my previous post) would be too difficult. The jumper I made following a simple hoodie pattern, just made a little change at the neck.

Oh, and we practiced fashion sketches, it was really cool. :)

I am in Umeå right now, at the university. We are going to learn pattern making this time, which I really look forward to.


And now, cross stitch. I have created a spring bird cross stitch pattern for you. And for myself, actually - I don´t always stitch my patterns, or rather, haven´t yet, but I am going to do this one as soon as I get home. Just can´t decide which version. I think they would make lovely decoration on an easter basket or pillow…

Hope you will have fun stitching the bird, let me know if you do.

Happy stitching

Summer crafting: Apron sewing tutorial

This is a tutorial on how to sew the apron from the free pattern from my previous post.

This was the first I made, and now I am making a new one for the purposes of this tutorial. That's why the fabric is different.

First of all, we need to cut out the fabric. We need one piece for the centre of the apron, cut on fold, two pieces for the sides, two pieces for the pockets and four for the ties.

As I told you, I didn't put seam allowance on my paper pattern, but you can. If you did, just pin them to your fabric and cut around the pattern. I did it this way: I put the 2 cm line on my quilting ruler on the edge of the pattern, and cut. Lucky this pattern is almost all straight lines, the curves I just freehanded.

Here are my pieces. On the right the middle piece, opened, then the two sides, above the two pockets, and the ties. I did not bother much about the pattern of the fabric, except that it was not upside down, but I did fussy-cut the pockets. I wanted to have a nice pattern element on the pockets, not cut in half.

If you look at the first apron, in the above picture, you see that the pockets and the ties are made of a matching fabric but with a different pattern. You can also do that if you want.

We start sewing with the pockets.
First use the 2 cm seam allowance to double-hem the top of the pocket. The top is the slanted line:

Then we do the same on the shorter side and on the bottom. Since the bottom is slightly curved, I do it like this: I sew a basting stitch along the curve, about 5 mm from the edge, and pull the thread a little. Then I iron the fold while still pilling a little.

When 3 sides of the pocket pieces are hemmed (the longest side is left with a raw edge), we put them on top of the side pieces. Measure 10 cm from the top of the side piece (the blue dot) that's where the point of the pocket will be, the raw edges of the two should be matching. Pin in place.

Then we take the middle piece, put on side piece with the pocket attached on top of it. The wrong sides are touching, the right sides are outwards because we are going to sew a French seam. I love French seams, they mean that there are no unsightly seams or fraying edges on the wrong side.

Match the bottom of the pieces and pin them:

Sew them together, using a 5-6 mm seam allowance. Important: at the top, don't start sewing right at the edge, leave 2 cm unsewn, so we can easily fold that part down later for hemming.

This is what we get:

Do this on both sides.

Then fold them so they the right sides are meeting on the inside, and iron the seam lines:

Sew another seam from this side now, with 1 cm seam allowance. It will look like this from the back:

And this from the front:

Then iron down the seam on the back, towards the middle, and sew along the edge of it:

Hem the top part of the sides: I folded down the 2 cm that we did not sew together with the middle like this:

then fold half of this under, so the raw edge is hidden. Sew the hem.

Now hem the top of the middle piece, the two sides and the bottom of the apron. If you find it difficult to hem the curved button, use the basting stitch trick I showed you with the pockets.

Only the ties are left, and the sides of the middle top part.

Now let's look at the sides of the middle piece. Because of the French seam, there is a double fold at the edge, like this:

We need to simply iron it down as it is. We will not hem this side but put it in between the folded ties and sew.

So take the 80 cm long tie pieces. Fold them in half, iron, open up, fold the to sides to the middle, iron, and fold it in the middle again.

But for this, because it will be quite thick with the extra fabric put in between, I like to offset the folds a little, when I fold first, I fold not exactly in the middle but so that one side is a bit bigger than the other:

After this open the ends, fold and iron the edge in about 1 cm, so there is no raw edge visible when we sew.

Open it and put the narrower fold right side down on top of the wrong side of the apron, match the folded edge to the hemming on the sides, and sew a seam 1-2 mm from the fold line (red line in the picture):

Then fold the whole thing to the right side, and topstitch on the edge.

Start sewing at the waist, and after you have stitched it down on the top part of the apron, continue stitching together the tie. At this point I moved the fold a little so it was folded more in the middle. When you reach the end, pivot and sew across:

Only the waist ties are left. Fold the two 60 cm long ties the same way as the neckties, but make it symmetrical. Put the corner of the apron in between this fold for about 2 cm, and sew them together:

Your apron should be ready. Enjoy it. :)

Please let me know if any of the steps need clarification, if I forgot something - you can also tell me if it seems to be working. :)


I will be soon back with some embroidery and a cross stitch pattern.