Making a Blue Bird Feeder
The Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild has an annual Sale and Exhibition. Every year there is a theme for the Exhibition. This year and the next two years. we are doing a section of the colour wheel. This year we are doing the blue section. We are taking it to the secondary colour on each side to give people the most scope to work with.
Wendy, the Coordinator of the Exhibition, also asked people to let her know if the piece was done in a class or was a class we teach. So, I made a blue bird feeder. It is a fun class. It is always more fun if it doesn’t have to fit anyone at the end.
I like to do a gourd shape, and with the blue theme, I used 4 shades of blue.
Then I picked out some of my blue handspun that has some sparkle in it. I created an all over random design that wrapped around onto the other side.
Then fixed the front so I could cut the hole without cutting the design.
You can see some of the yarn above the hole shifted while I was rolling. Impatience getting the better of me again. I may try to shift them a little with a felting needle.
these to great outside. My mother-in-law’s feeder was hanging outside for 3 years before the rope hanger broke. It was purple with orange locks. After 3 years, it was bluish grey from the sun. The chickadees in particular liked it.
10 thoughts on “Making a Blue Bird Feeder”
I love it Ann! I may have to try that. I need to start small and something that doesn’t need to fit anyone.
I have been out of commission a lot of this summer with a back that went out when trying to lift to dump a big water trough that had water in it. My hubbie has been helping with the sheep and I have someone in Washington State interested in buying my flock!
Give it a try, don’t forget to take breaks and you can spread it over several days if you need to. Isn’t it awful we our body reminds us we are not 25 anymore. Good news on the potential sale. it makes it simple if someone takes the whole flock.
That’s obviously a fun workshop to attend Ann. I bet when you give the workshop your students end up with feeders that their birds will love too.
I’ve just been back and looked at Jan’s posts on chickadees. They are very similar to our Great Tits, just a different colour; so I may end up making a feeder and a Great Tit to sit on it to entice other birds to have a look. There we go, another rabbit hole. If only there were more hours in the day (and more warm rather than raging hot summer days – that would help) 🥵
The idea of a colour theme for your Guild’s exhibition is a good one. I hope you and Jan will give us a report on it when it happens.
Ann
I think chickadees are a little smaller than english robin size. they are very bold and brave. Bird feeders are fun. we ususally do balls or gourd shapes but as long as they can easily get in and out for the seed any shape will do. the colour theme is a nice wide theme for people. Lots of scope. I think I will put in my spiral form Helen’s class, too.
Actually, now I come to think about it, with that long tail a chickadee looks more like one of our wagtails – so called because they twitch their tails up and down all the time, not just when they’re walking.
A.
It’s pretty to look at and so helpful for the birds – lovely felty make and it fits the brief 🙂
Wow! Three years is a long time for your m.i.l’s feeder to last – shows how good felt can be.
The shift in the yarn is part of the design and if you hadn’t mentioned it no-one would have noticed!
They are fun nice bright spots in the winter. I am not sure what happened to the feeder. It was the rope that broke. Ye i get it about the design. I know what it should look like so I see it.
Blue is a very broad subject but it should be great fun to see everyone’s interpretation. Are only blue birds allowed at your feeder? 😉 I like that shape for the feeder, it seems a good option for smaller birds. Do you get squirrels bothering the feeder? My feeders get all kinds of visitors like deer, bear, squirrels, chipmunks and occasional birds.
thanks, squirrels don’t really come up near the house. I don’t think they got the memo that there are no cats here now. Raccoons can be a problem. they have eaten the Halloween pumpkins on the porch but they didn’t bother the feeder. We don’t see bears very often and always out in the fields.
I love the bird feeder, such a beautiful colour, but I think the birds who visit my garden would destroy it in no time. If only little blue tits, great tits or coal tits came…. sigh. Goldfinches, so pretty, but so messy – spitting food everywhere, and blooming pigeons constantly making plans to own, or take over the bird feeder. Other birds, aka LBJs, fly in and out without making a fuss. Blooming pigeons