Satin Stitch Bird with Free Template

I am thrilled today to posting in unison with a blogger and stitcher I really respect: Mollie from Wild Olive. 

If you have yet to check out her blog, well, you are missing out. 

I don’t know of anyone that can make cuter embroidery projects, and she offers so many free templates that just visiting her blog will keep you stitching for months.

As a reader of her blog, I have come to enjoy and look forward to her monthly themes. 

Among my favorites were kites and Mario Brothers (seriously, go check it out!). 

The month of August she has spent stitching, musing, and crafting with birds as her theme. 

So, I decided to get in on the fun and stitch up a little bird myself. Here is her bird project:

Mollie gives you all the detail on how she made it over on her blog. 

To see it, go here.

For my little birdy pillow, I once again used statin stitch (something I have used in one form or another in this project, this project, and this project). 

The project is really very simple and after stitching it up I turned it into a tiny throw pillow.

Here’s how to make your own.

Supplies:

• Template
• Neutral Fabric
• Iron-On Interfacing
• Embroidery Thread
• Embroidery Hoop

First of all, download the template and sketch it onto your material. 

I like to use simply bring the template up on my computer screen, tape my fabric to the screen, and trace that way. 

This makes it really easy to resize. 

After you have drawn out your image, iron on some interfacing. This will give you a little more stability.

As you can see, the sketch doesn’t have to be neat or precise!

Next–start stitching!  Statin stitch is simply long stitches that fill an area completely. 

These patterns work well for statin stitch because of all the little areas. 

I used 7 different shades of blue and just made sure that the same color wasn’t touching another patch of it. 

Other than that, I worked across the bird and was able to complete the stitching in about 2 hours. 

As a final touch, I added some orange for the nose and feet.

Here’s a close up if you’d like a closer look:

This project, once again, gave me an opportunity to fall even deeper in love with embroidery thread. 

It just comes in so many great colors, and satin stitch is a great way to show off that color!

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks to Mollie for letting me tag along on her theme. 

If you too have a cute little bird project to share, I’d love to see it!  Just leave the link here:

PS–I sort of have a thing for birds.  If you do too, check out these other birdy projects: