Cute little bird knitting pattern

I have had so much fun recently making these little brightly-coloured birds with wire legs. They are a great way of using up any odds and ends in your stash and are super-cute! If you'd like to knit a flock of your own, the knitting pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.

If you knit these little birds and don't add the wire legs, you can attach ribbon to the top of their heads, or body, and use them as cute Easter decorations or as a mobile.

I'm going to play round with this pattern and knit a few different variations so watch this space...

Two hoots

A pair of knitted snowy owls - the patterns for these are going to be in my book. One with wings up, one with wings down...

Puffin on the beach

Beautiful, frosty morning on Worthing beach this morning. Perfect weather for a knitted puffin!

Knitted blackbird

I've decided to make a limited number of knitted birds for sale on Etsy, in the run-up to my Knitted Birds book being published by Search Press in September. So here's the first one who is currently available for adoption on Etsy - a handsome male knitted blackbird.

He's approximately 20cm long from tip of the tail to tip of the felt beak. If you'd like to knit one of your own, he will be one of the patterns in my Knitted Birds book!

Home made bird food

The birds in my garden love coconut suet feeders, so much so that I ended up with a pile of empty coconut shells. I wondered if it was possible to reuse these shells and fill them with your own suet mix. There were plenty of recipes online varying from the expensive and complicated, to the rather dubious (full of flour and filler). I wanted to make something simple, cheap and nutritious!

I ended up adapting a recipe I found on the Birds and Blooms website. It was very easy to make, worked out cheaper than buying new coconut feeders, and the birds loved it.

If you would like to make a treat for the birds in your garden, here is the recipe to make enough to fill 2 coconut shells. If you want to make more, it's easy to multiply the ingedients.

You will need:

125g lard

200g unsalted peanuts

50g bird seed mix

Melt the lard (either in a saucepan or in a baking tin in a low oven). While it is melting, blitz your peanuts in a food processor until it they are well chopped. You don't want a powder, just lots of nubbly small pieces. When the lard has melted, stir in your peanut pieces and bird seed mix, mix well, and press into your coconut shells. Leave in a cool place to set and then hang out for the birds!

This basic recipe is very adaptable - you could add raisins, or sunflower seeds. Experiment and see what your birds prefer!

Kingfisher

It's been a really busy new year so far - I've been proofreading all the bird patterns for my new book and working on the final few birds who will make it into the pages. This little knitted kingfisher is one of them!

Knitted woodpecker

This knitted European Green Woodpecker was hanging out in my freezing winter garden. Not a great photo, but I was in a rush because I was feeling guilty about the crowd of sparrows I had disturbed at the bird feeders while faffing around with the woodpecker. It's not nice being guilt - tripped by tiny, cold birds.