Birds of a Feather Appliqued Pillow

I just finished a birthday gift for my friend Mary. It's a decorative linen pillow with bird appliques. I couldn't find a nice bird silhouette that I liked. I am an avid bird watcher and had an idea of what I wanted, so I just designed something myself. I was looking for a classic song bird shape without too much detail, to make the applique easier to cut.


I used some heavy weight graph paper that was lying around and it makes a nice stencil. Then four different fabrics in coordinating colors of blue and green were chosen. I had recently made a few other appliqued pillows where I used a bright white cotton canvas. But Mary has a white slip covered couch so I wanted to go with a different fabric. I bought this beautiful 100% linen fabric on sale and I'm glad I got enough to make additional pillows. It's so soft and has a nice drape.

Bird Applique closeup.

Linen fabric and back envelope closure

Hope
by Emily Dickenson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


Bird Gift Tag
For the gift tag, I used the bird stencil to cut out a tag from heavy weight scrap booking paper and wrote the first part of Emily Dickenson's poem Hope on the other side.