A while back I was at a discount bookstore and picked up a book by Virginia Lindsay, Pretty Birds. It has very simple patterns to make a range of different little birds and was just the thing I needed to find an idea for the handmade ornament exchange my embroidery guild hosts. Since it is a winter holiday, I chose her cardinal bird and downsized it to 75%.

Don’t tell anyone, but I couldn’t find two buttons that looked like eyes, and that were the right size, and that matched… Really, though, if someone notices, it just adds to the handmade effect, no? 🙂

To dress up the wings, I added some rows of stacked fly stitches in a chunky pearl cotton.

I have a few ideas on how I might change this bird if I were to do it again. That is my real joy in making – always trying new ideas. People constantly tell me “you could sell these!” but tell me, where is the fun in that? Making the same thing over and over is a superbly boring idea to me. Let us not forget, too, that almost everything you see here is someone else’s pattern.

I know it will look great against an evergreen tree limb, though! I hope it’s new owner enjoys it:)