As Part of my plan to beat burn out I decided to do, make, or draw something every week which isn't related to my business, last week I was naughty and skipped class because I was just way too worn out so I decided to use sunday for my making/playing day (after I did my accounts and answered my emails and made some wedding birds)
A pal had brought this gorgeous book, The Artful Bird by Abigail Patner Glassenberg to class previously and I kind of had to buy it! I chose the crow as my first project... probably a bit ambitious really as I haven't really sewn properly for 12 years but I decided to just dive in. The first obstacle I came across was the pattern pieces, they are printed in the book without seam allowance so I struggled adding it on, especially to some of the more complex small pieces, I haven't used a pattern since GCSE so it was a struggle for me.
The next obstacle was the darts for the legs (do I just sew the darts, as indicated? what about the seam allowance) but after that it was pretty much plain sailing... altogether my crow took about 7-8 hours if you include the time to bake the beak which is made from polymer clay. I imagine a more experienced sewer would be faster... or if I made a few more I might be faster too.
All in all I enjoyed making my crow, he's a little wobbly and his beak is crooked and there are lots of places where I have used sneaky tricks and embroidered bits to hide my mistakes and bad sewing. The instructions are concise and pretty easy to follow but you need a reasonable experience with sewing, I wouldn't recommend this book to a novice.
Edgar Allen Crow is lovely tho, I'm very fond of his crooked everything. I went with bead eyes and changed the wings as I didn't like the way they were in the book and added a little embroidery so he didn't look so very black, he's now gracing our living room, perched next to the Plague doctor's mask we have on display and looking very at home there!
I very much enjoyed losing myself in a project that didn't come entirely from my noggin and I have a feeling that artful bird making is addictive!
4 comments:
Kruczydło jest rewelacyjne!!!
He is lovely. I love crows. So intelligent. You did well with such a dark coloured bird!
It's a great job!! Love it! :)
Beautiful job! This isn't an easy project and you really made a wonderful crow. Thank you for sewing from my book!
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