Thursday, April 05, 2007

bird nest factory

Twenty-six handcrafted birds' nests sold from the school store, plus three more "on order," and an additional two or three if I can stand to make any more... I am stunned. There is no more robin's egg blue wool to be found, so some are blue-lavender and some are an unnatural blue-cobalt. But my delivery team tells me the nests are in high demand, anyway, with parents stopping my husband and children in the hallways at school, whipping out wallets and happily dickering over who gets which nest.

The first six nests were crafted from handspun yarn, and they were my favorite ones. The handspun had "too much twist," so it twisted into a pile of twiggy-looking loops, twisted back on itself. I quickly ran out of handspun and have been digging through my yarn bin for any suitable colors and textures. I can produce four nests in two hours, and then four the next day-- more than four becomes stressful. (I say this, with six little nests on my to-be-finished tray, and a sick boy at home, and a lot of chores and writing to do.)

Lucky me to find a spring craft in great demand. Today I could hear the cardinals calling from the backyard as I worked on my nests.

4 comments:

truevyne said...

Beautiful!

zippiknits...sometimes said...

Those are really cute, and I'm not surprised they sold so well. hehe.. I want one, too!

Anonymous said...

your nests are beautiful! are they needlefelted, or woven? i'd love to know how you constructed them!! *-*

Denise said...

I throw together a little spaghetti-looking pile of yarn, then needlefelt the center of the circle until the center is firm. Then I lightly needlefelt the sides to shape it into more of a cup.

Then I add the green bits and felted eggs.