While brainstorming cake toppers for the fern’s twig theme wedding cake we kept coming back to birds as the obvious choice. Twigs = birds, birds = love, right? So cute!

Click here for the free pattern: birdie pattern

Directions:

1. Print out the birdie pattern and cut out the paper pieces. Pin the paper pieces to your fabric. *For the body pieces cut 1 right side & 1 wrong side to make the right and left of the body. You will have 1 head, 1 chest and 2 body pieces.

2. Iron fusible interfacing to the wrong side of fabric if needed, your pieces of interfacing should be cut about 1/8 inch smaller than your fabric pieces (confession: I interface everything, It makes me feel good inside)

3. If you are going to embellish your birdie it’s easier to do that now before you stitch it up. I used lace that matched the brides dress to fancy mine up.

Now you are ready to sew your bird pieces together. The seams are on the outside and all the stitching is done by hand with a simple running stitch. To hide all the thread from the little knots you make tie your knot then draw the thread through the fabric coming up about a half inch from your knot and then cut your thread there.

4. Begin by sewing the head piece to one side of the body starting at the beak and working your way to the back of the head. When you reach the back of the head tie a knot and cut your thread. Next sew the other side of the head to the 2nd body piece, again starting at the beak and working your way to the back of the head. Once you reach the back of the head you can continue stitching down the back, joining the two side pieces, until your reach the tail. Tie a knot at the tail and cut your thread.

5. Start at the beak again and sew one side of the chest piece to the body piece halfway to the tail, and then start at the beak again and sew halfway to the tail on the other side. This is where your legs will go in, you should now have a bird taking shape with just a butt flap still to sew shut.

6. Stuff that birdies front end. Insert legs *See directions for making legs below (Legs are optional if you want to make a hanging bird for a decoration or a mobile or a cat toy maybe?) Now stuff his body and stitch up that butt flap.

7. You can now put on the finishing touches, for the eyes seed beads work well or you can embroider them. Since these birdies are wedding cake toppers I added a dapper bow tie and a veil.

Make the legs:

Making the 2 legs in one piece makes the birdie more stable which is important if you want the little guy to stand up.  You can use any kind of craft wire, pipe cleaner, or whatever you can find in your supplies. I used paper wrapped wire. As you wrap the wire into legs, try to have the sharp ends end up in the cross piece.  That way they’ll be hidden inside the bird once they’re installed.  Just twist them together like so…Here are Mr. and Mrs. Birdie on their big day (this picture is making me hungry, it was such a yummy cake!) Oh, and the birds look pretty nice too!

If you are using this pattern or just thinking about using this pattern and have any questions feel free to leave a comment. We would love to see some finished birdies!