Cardinal Ornament

Hi, everybody and welcome to our live crochet event. I'm Brenda Ky Anderson. Today. I am gonna be showing you guys how to make this adorable little cardinal ornament. It's just a cute little bird amateur roomie and it's a lot easier than you might think.

It's pretty simple. It does involve a little bit of sewing at the end. Um But I may be walking you guys through all the steps so that you guys can make one too. All right. So, um this is a live event, of course.

So I love it when you guys are active in the chat. I love it when you guys, you know, pop in and say hello or if you have any questions, by all means, put those in the chat so I can get them answered for you during this live event also. Um Make sure that you download the pattern. It's just cardinal ornament pattern, it's free for everybody. Um And the link is in the description for that, so you can go ahead and download that and follow along, um or you can always come back and download that later if you just wanna be watching the event for right now.

So. All right. So, um I'm so glad you guys are here. I'm very excited to teach this. I um I really love making Amaga Romi.

It's really, I guess, you know, if people ask me what my crochet specialty is, I feel like it's toys and Amaro and three dimensional kind of sculptures. My brain just kinda works in those three dimensions. Um And I love making cute things and it's just so fun and I, I love the idea that you can just take balls of yarn with seemingly little personality. I mean, maybe there's a little personality here and then you can just use a crochet hook and turn it into something that people have like an emotional reaction to, you know, they wanna hug it or they're just like, wow, that's so cute or, you know, you can even make something scary. It's just really cool that you can do.

I mean, it's just kind of like magic. I mean, all it takes is this and a little bit of know how. So I'm very excited to teach this. Um So first let's talk about uh the materials that you're gonna be needing. You might even have these things in your stash already.

I did, I just used scraps that I already had. Um And uh you're gonna be needing three colors of yarn. So I used these three colors. I used a red for the body wings and tail. I used black for the little face part, like the mask behind the eyes.

And then I use this sort of goldy, orangey, goldy kind of color um for the beak. However, if you know more about birds than I did when I first started this, you might know that cardinals actually more often have a slightly more red tinged beak. Um It's kind of like a orangey red so you could even use the same red if you wanted to. I feel like it would look a little bit better though if there was some contrast between the beak and the body colors. So if you have a scrap, that's kind of like an orangey red color that might work better.

I felt like once I made this, um I had based this on this design actually on some photos of cardinals that I looked up on the internet and those cardinals actually did have a more goldy orangey beak. So maybe some cardinals do. But I think it's more common for them to have a little bit more of a red tinge to them. So, you know, don't be limited by the color that I chose for the beak, you know, do your own research and choose your own color for the beak. Um But I did on purpose, choose a yarn for the beak that is a little bit smoother.

This is a cotton yarn. I think it actually might be cotton and linen. Um But try to find something that isn't too fuzzy for the beak if you have that. If you don't just use what you have, it's really a tiny little piece and it's not a big deal. Um, so these are all, these two are worse weight yarns and this yarn is a decay but a worse weight yarn would work as well for this.

That would be fine. It would, it would just be a tiny, tiny bit bigger, but you could just crochet a little tighter. It's such a tiny piece you're making, you don't have to go buy special yarn if you have something, um, already that would work color wise. So you just need a little bit of yarn. This is actually way more yarn than you need.

This probably would make two birds. Um, maybe even more than that. And the black, you just need like a yard and the beak you need about a yard. So it's really very tiny, little amounts. Ok.

So you need the yarn, of course, you're gonna need a hook and I am using an F hook, which is a 3.75 millimeter hook. Um, but you can use whatever hook goes with your yarn to make a nice firm gauge. Um, you just don't wanna see holes between your stitches. That's way more important than actually measuring the gauge and getting the correct size. Um, well, within reason, I mean, if you're using like a bulky weight yarn or something, your bird's gonna be bigger, which is fine.

Um If you're OK with having a larger ornament or maybe you just wanna make a more life size size bird um, than what I have because this is a little kind of like a little baby Cardinal here. Um OK, so you're gonna use your whatever hook you need to work up that yarn and get a nice tight gauge. You're also going to need some fiber fill. So this is just like a polyester fiber fill craft filling. You can get this at any, any craft store and then um you're gonna need a pair of safety eyes, which I'm using these little eight millimeter black safety eyes.

I thought that they looked really good. Um But you could instead of safety eyes, if you're not into that, you could do a tiny speck of like white embroidery to kind of show like a the shiny spot on the eye because if you try to embroider a black eye on the black face, you will never see it. Um So you could try embroidering just with like a little white dot There. Um Another thing that you could do is you could use some buttons that you know, just some little tiny black buttons and sew those on instead of the safety eyes if you don't wanna um get these. But I did, I did put a link in the pattern for where I got these safety eyes.

If you are curious um where they came from. So they, it comes in a set of a, you know, a larger amount of safety eyes. All right. So you just need two of those and then um stitch markers, a couple of stitch markers, just the lacking kind of stitch markers that you can add. And then a yarn needle.

And the last thing that I used was a little tiny piece of twine. I'm just using this kind of thin rustic looking twine and I use that to hang my bird. Um You could also use a piece of embroidery floss, a different, you know, a contrasting color of yarn or maybe you like it better if it matches. Um, you know, you just wanna maybe place it next to your bird and take a look at it and see what the overall effect is. So I was looking for sort of a more rustic look to this bird.

I wanted it to feel, I don't know, kind of like wildlife in some way. And so that's why I chose this twine. I just felt like it kind of had those vibes. Um But you could use a ribbon, you know, you could use clear like that, um invisible sewing thread if you don't want to see it or fishing line, you know, any of those things would work. All right.

So let's get started on working up this bird. So, the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna create this sh the shape for the body, which let me just give you a little preview of what it looks like. Ok, it looks like. Um, it's a very roughly circle. If I open it up, you can see it's kind of ruffling out.

And so it just wants to fold, you can kind of see the, the bird shape now here right when I fold it flat. So this is really simple, a simple way to get the whole shape of the head and the back and the beginnings of the, the end of the bird, we're gonna make the tail separately. But we're gonna start out by making this piece and we are gonna start by making a magic ring, magic loop, adjustable loop, whatever you wanna call it. And this is the way that I do mine. There's lots of different ways so you can make it however you like.

But I just draw a little loop like that. Then I take my loop and flip it on top, just sort of flip it, fold it so that it's on top of the strand connected to my ball and then I place my hook underneath that strand and I'm holding right here where everything crosses over with my finger and I pull this in till it's kind of a manageable size. We still want to keep it open because we're gonna still crochet in there. Then we're just going to make a chain here that anchors our yarn um to this chain and then you can crochet this way or you can turn your work and crochet this way, either way is fine. Um For things like this, if I know there's gonna be a lot of stitches in there, I will actually flip this, this loop this way and crochet over this sort of double strand here.

But it doesn't really make, it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Um So I'm gonna start by crocheting into the circle and I'm gonna be making 10 single crochets into that, into that open loop there into that circle. So insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, you're an over and pull through two. That's our first stitch. Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two.

That's the second stitch. These are all single crochets. Three, four, five. I'm gonna tighten that just a little six, seven, eight, nine and OK? And then we can pull on the beginning strand and tighten that loop up to nothing.

OK? Till it closes all the way. And I like to keep this on the outside always because I always weave this in, especially if I'm starting with any kind of adjustable loop because it can work itself open. Um And that, that can be a problem. So I'm gonna just let that hang on the outside and then I'm gonna continue working, starting with that very first single crochet that I made which is right here and then I'm gonna work my way around.

Let me just count backwards here. 123456789 and 10. Ok. So there's my first stitch right there between my thumbs. It's, I always like to count backwards just to make sure I am not missing that first stitch, which I almost did because it's kind of, it's kind of small here.

So now we're going to work round two and we're gonna do two stitches into each stitch around. So we'll just insert our hook. You're an over, pull up the loop, you're an over pull through two. That's the first stitch of the second round and I am going to place uh a stitch marker in that so that I can keep track of the beginning of my rounds here. Um Karen Bru Brunel.

Uh Bru, sorry, Brunel. No, I'm sorry, I'm butchering your name, Karen. Um She is saying hi and she's excited to learn this. Hi, Karen. I'm glad that you're here and I'm sorry, I, I wrecked your last name there.

All right. So we've got our first stitch um in the very first stitch of the round and we're gonna do another stitch in that same spot. So we've inserted into the same place. Drop a loop you on over and pull through two. There's our second stitch of the round.

Now we're just gonna continue working two stitches into each stitch around on round number two, one and two, one and 21 and 21 and two, one and two, one and two, one and two. And they're the last two. So at this point, uh, you should have 20 stitches in the second round. So just to let you know every round you're going to be increasing by 10 stitches in, in every round that we do in the body. So that way you can keep track at the end of the first round, you'd have 12th round, you'd have 23rd round, you'd have 30.

Um And I did write out in the pattern. I'm just gonna show you kind of how this works. Um In case you're newer to reading a pattern, I wanna make sure that you can understand these directions because I am not gonna do every single stitch of the body just to make sure that we have enough time at the end to assemble everything. Um But I, I do wanna talk you through how to read this pattern in case you've never done this before with the parentheses. So you can see here, it says round three and then in these brackets here, it says two single crochets in the next stitch, one single crochet into the next stitch.

OK. That's all within those brackets and then it says 10 times and then 30 stitches. So what this means is everything in the brackets. You repeat that section 10 times or sorry, you work that section a total of 10 times. OK?

So we're gonna do this, go through this section 10 times and then at the end of that, you should have 30 stitches. OK? So we're gonna do that here in round three. So we'll do two single crochets in the next stitch one, single crochet into the following stitch and then we repeat that. So here's our 1st 21 and two.

I'm gonna place my stitch marker back in that first stitch that I made of the round and then the next stitch, we just place one single crochet there. OK? Now we, now we're gonna do another repeat. So 21 and two and then the next stitch gets one, next stitch gets to one and two. Next stitch gets one, one and two, one, one and two and then one.

OK? And we just keep repeating this and you will notice, especially if you've done this kind of thing before and you're used to making a flat circle. You're gonna notice it's not gonna wanna lay flat anymore. It's gonna start ruffling. Um And that's a s that's a good sign.

That's what it's supposed to do in order to make that shape. One and two and one. And here are the last two stitches, one and two and then one and now we have a total of 30 stitches here around and you can see it's, it's doesn't really want to lay flat. I kind of have to force it to lay flat, but it's already wanting to do that kind of ripple because normally when you make a circle, you start with six stitches and then you go to 12 and then 18. And already here in the third round, we have 30 which is almost double what we would normally have, right?

Instead of 18, we have 30. So it's gonna start, it doesn't know where to put all those stitches. So it's not able to lay flat basically. All right. So you would just keep continuing to work around and around.

You'd work round four all the way through round seven and you are gonna be following the instructions here. So, um on the next round, you would single crochet into each of the next two stitches. So that would, that means one single crochet into each of the next two stitches and then in the following stitch, you do two single crochets in the next stitch and then you repeat that little segment, you do that a total of 10 times in this round and you will end up with 40 stitches, ok? So that you're just gonna follow your way through, um making your increases as it's telling you to. And you might wonder, um, you know, especially if you've done this kind of thing before, why don't I just always make the increase at the beginning of each little segment, um, which you could do.

But the reason that I avoid doing that. Normally, when I'm working on Amaga roomy is because when you increase at the very beginning and then you just kind of, um you know, fill in the rest of your stitches, you're always increasing on top of another increase. And what happens is your piece starts to look segmented, it starts to get faceted and you start to get these kind of corners and points. Um depending on how many increases per round, that's the shape it'll be. But that's why I generally avoid doing that type of thing when I'm working on Amaga roomy.

So I kind of mix up where my increases are so that they're not on top of another increase if I can help it. All right. So you would just keep on going until you get to round seven. And again, that's what this piece will look like. Here we go.

This is what it will look like after you've worked that seventh round and you'll have a total of 70 stitches here, see how it just doesn't wanna lay flat and then we can take this beginning yarn tail and weave that in to just kind of get rid of it and not worry about it anymore. So I'm gonna just go ahead and do that. So I pull it nice and tight to make sure that this is closed all of the way. And then I am going to run it through a couple of stitches and out through the back and then I'm gonna weave it in on the back side, on the wrong side here just to make sure that that's not gonna open up and it's really good to split through your stitches to get a little bit of extra um kind of traction on your yarn so that it can't just slip, slip back through and um, and open up. We don't want that center to open up.

OK. Go in at least a couple of different directions and then you can cut that off. All right. Oh Karen's giving me a pronunciation. So it's uh Brunel.

Thank you. Got it. I'm so fast. OK. Let me know if I'm going too quick.

All right, Karen. Um If there is anything, I need to go back and do, maybe I can slow down a little bit if you feel like this is too much. All right. OK. So here we have ended and then we're just going to do a slip stitch in the next stitch to fasten off.

I mean, honestly, you could just pull that loop through. It won't really matter because we're gonna be doing a seam. So you'll cut your yarn, leave yourself a, a pretty long yarn tail. This is probably a little too long. Um, maybe like 20 inches at the most is probably what you would need.

And then we're just gonna yarn over, pull a loop through and pull through the loop on our hook to fasten off. We're gonna pull that all the way through and then we are finished with that one uh with this piece except that we need to mark two places and this will help you when we're seaming it up later. OK? So we're gonna, let's see, we're marking, I think Stitch place marker in the 30th stitch and the 41st stitch of the last round. OK.

So this was the very first stitch of the round. That's the one I slip stitched into. So we're gonna count up to 30. So 123456789, 1011, 1213, 1415, 1617, 1819, 2021. 22 23 24 25 26 27 2829 and 30.

There's 30. So we're gonna place a stitch marker there and then we're gonna place one in the 41st stitch. OK? So that was 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 right here. All right.

So now those two stitch markers are placed. Um And then we're gonna fold the body in half. So you can kind of match up those stitch markers and you will find that your ending yarn tail should be right at the fold. OK? So when we fold that right at the tip there and we are going to stitch up just a little bit of the head of the bird because we need to do that in order to put the eye, uh put the face.

Let's see. Do I call it a face? Yes, the face onto the bird. This needs to be stitched up before we do that. And the reason we need to do that before we um get everything all finished up is because we need to set the safety eyes through the face.

Um And through the bird before we are finished with the bird, because we gotta put those backings on to the safety eyes. So if you are substituting with embroidery or you're substituting with buttons, you don't need to do this little part where you stitch it just a little bit, you can just, you know, make the whole bird, add the like, add the stuffing in there, sew the face mask on and then do the eyes later. This is the reason we're doing this sort of weird construction here and stopping and starting is because of the safety eyes. All right. So here's our yarn tail, our ending yarn tail and we are just gonna whip stitch these stitches together for about an inch and a half.

OK. So an inch and a half measured from here down. So just make sure you're going through, um we're just doing a whip stitch, but just make sure you're going through stitch by stitch. You know, here's the next stitch and there's the next stitch from the other side and this is going to be, you know, right on the front of the, the bird's head. So you just wanna make sure you're doing a pretty tidy seam here.

But since you're using the same color, it should blend in nicely. That shouldn't be a problem. All right. Let's see. I'm gonna measure that.

I think we need to go just a little further. Yeah, it's almost there. I'll just do one more, one more stitch here just to make sure it's far enough. OK. So then at this point, we can, we're gonna stop on this, on this part of the project and then we're gonna make that face so that we can add it on to there.

So we're not gonna do anything. We're not gonna fasten off or weave in our end or anything like that because we're gonna use that later to finish seaming. Um We're just gonna set that aside for now. All right. So now the face I made the face in black.

I am going to demonstrate how to make the face in this color. So you guys can actually see my stitches because it's really hard to see anything in black. Um But I will later on be sewing the black, the black piece on to the red bodies. You can see what that looks like. All right.

So to do the face, we're gonna chain nine. So we're gonna start with our slip knot. So we just draw a little E shape, flip it over onto the yarn attached to the ball, place our hook underneath that and we're gonna tighten that all the way up. OK? And then we're gonna chain nine.

So 123456789, that ninth stitch is not gonna that nice chain. Sorry is not, we're not gonna work into that one. That's just kind of like a turning chain there. So, um, when we begin, we're gonna start working into the second chain, but we're gonna work into the bottom of the chain. So this is what most people call the top of the chain.

There's a bunch of little vs all stacked up. When you look at them. If you roll those of these over until they're on the table, there's all these little horizontal dashes on the backside of your yarn. So you can go ahead and skip the first horizontal dash and work underneath the second horizontal dash and we're gonna do a single crochet there. So yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over and pull through two.

There's your first ditch and then we're gonna do six, half, double crochets. So we're gonna yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three, that's just a slightly taller stitch. And we're gonna do five more of those. You're an over insert, you're an over, pull up, you're an over, pull through three. So you're basically, you're doing these all the way to the end until there's just one stitch left.

So I've got two more left here. One and two and then a single crochet right there in that very last stitch and very last chain. OK. And then you're just gonna cut your yarn and give yourself maybe like 12 inches or so. Um, a nice long yarn tail.

Um, because we're gonna use that to sew it to the bird. So we're just gonna draw that through that very last stitch and tighten it up. All right. So that is, that's all there is to the face. It's very simple.

And then, so I'm gonna swap out. Actually, I'm gonna stitch this to this piece because I feel like it's gonna show up a little bit better and you guys will be able to see what I'm doing just a little better here. All right. So I am going to thread one of those. Yeah.

Actually, I'm going to weave in this and just to get it out of the way. So that when I'm sewing it's not in the way, um, you could just poke it in to the bird later if you wanted to. Um, but this just is just, it doesn't take very long and it just helps me, um, just to get it out of the way so that I'm not accidentally catching that when I'm sewing things together. So I'm just gonna weave that end in one of the ends. So I can cut it off and then I'm going to sew the face on to the bird.

So it actually doesn't really matter which side you put up. Um, it's just, you wanna make sure that you are not, um, that the, that the edges of it are just a little bit more squished and it's a little taller in the middle. That's kind of what I'm looking at. You don't wanna distort it as you sew it. Um But you're just gonna lay that across the front of your bird head right above where you stop stitching.

So just lay it on like this and then go ahead and stitch, stitch it to the bird. So, what I'm looking at is I'm making sure that there are the same amount of stitches about on each side. So we've got eight stitches, 1234, there is the division and that should be pretty close to my seam, which it is and then 1234. So that way, you know that it's centered and you also just wanna pay attention so that this isn't going up or down, you just kind of want it to come straight across. All right.

So I'm gonna just put my needle in just below where that corner is and come up right here. It doesn't really matter. You know, you don't, you don't have to sew it on exactly like I am. Um But, you know, you do need to go around the whole, the whole edge of it so that it isn't just kind of sticking out. You want it to look like it's really part of the bird.

Ok. So we're gonna go down. I like to stitch just below those vs. Um If you wanted it to be a little bit more squished to the head, you could do a whip stitch over the edge here. Um But I'm just gonna be doing kind of like a, just a little running stitch or even a back stitch.

You can, you can put your needle in behind where you came out. If you wanna, if you wanna make sure that you're really getting those stitches because it, it can, you know, it's such a tiny little thing you're sewing on, onto this, this little head. You wanna make sure that you're getting it stitched down really neat and tidy because if anything is kind of sticking out your, your eye will be drawn to that. So, ok, now we're just gonna go across the bottom edge here like this just like that. And then you can go ahead and I'm just gonna kind of weave in my ends into the face, but you could send it all the way through into the, onto the wrong side of the bird itself as well if you wanted to.

But this is seems good enough for me. I'm just weaving it in inside of the, those stitches, um, for the face and then you can fasten it off. OK. So that's what it'll look like. Of course, it'll be black and then you can go ahead and put the eyes in so you can just place the eyes.

You're gonna be pushing it through two layers of fabric here and I put them pretty close to the, the edge there of that, that black color. It's kinda hard to see. I know because it's black on black here, but hopefully you can see with the shine of the plastic, that's what they look like. It's pretty close to that, the edge of the, the eye. So you'll just poke it right through.

Um, and then place the back on, on the inside. So I'm gonna switch over to this other bird here now that you know how that gets seam on and I'm going to put the black eyes into this bird, so I can finish up the one that has the face that I, that looks like the right color to me. So this is exactly the same, we left it off in the same place. I'm just gonna be pushing this safety eye through, close to the edge, through to the inside there. And your backings may look different than these, some than mine.

Sometimes they look very flat on the back, um, or sometimes there's sort of this bell shape. So you just kind of have to look at how they're shaped and, um, you know, it just this, these particular eyes don't come with instructions. So I wasn't sure whether to put them on this way or this way. And then when I looked, I did like a search on the internet to see how people were doing them and they were doing them both ways. So I tested it out to see which way worked best and honestly, both ways seem to be fine.

Um So I'm going to place them on which I, um I'm going to place them on this way because I felt like for this project because I'm going through that thickness, it helped me get it on. OK. Um As opposed to in this direction, but you will just go with whatever your safety eyes are. Um If there's instructions or if usually if there's a flat back like this that goes towards the back of the eye. So I think I may be putting these on upside down, but they stayed really well this way.

So I wasn't worried about it. All right. So I'm gonna place the other eye here on the other end, that little face. I'm just kind of trying to dig it through both layers here. There we go.

Make sure they're on nice and tight before you continue because we are later gonna close this up and it's not going to, you're not going to be able to access the back of the, the eyes after you seam it all up. All right, looking so cute. All right. So now we're gonna set this aside for a little bit. Um Let's see.

Unless do I have you stitch this up? Let me just check. Oh, ok. Actually we can stitch it a little bit further before we set it aside. It actually doesn't really make a difference, but I wanna do it in the same way that I wrote the directions here.

OK. So we're gonna just continue stitching this body together and we're gonna add the fiber fill. Oops, I gotta weave in this end here before we get there. Um But we're gonna leave it open between those two stitch markers and I'll show you why in a little bit. All right, I'm just gonna get this woven in here.

OK. Oh And Karen is asking if that's a yarn ball on the desk. Yes, this is a yarn ball that my friend Mary Lydia made for me. She makes yarn balls look how cute this is with the little buddy. She makes yarn balls.

Um She's a ceramic artist and she makes yarn balls and puts pictures of her bunnies on them. Very cute. And it's nice because it's nice and heavy. Like that's one thing that I, I like yarn balls that are big and I actually have one that's larger than this um for other things, but I really like my yarn bows to have a lot of weight to them because that way when you're pulling on your yarn your yarn bowl is not gonna tip over. And even though this has like a smaller base, it feels nice and heavy at the bottom.

So it's a, it's a good one. Ok. So now we are just gonna continue seaming across and we're gonna stop where these two markers are. So we're gonna just do the same seam that we were doing before, which is that whip stitch going through both edges. And I placed my finger between the two edges because it really helps me see where my needle is going and making sure I get it in the right spot.

Um, between here and then going through that stitch. It's just easier just for me to see, um, with my finger in between and you don't really need to stuff it until you get a little closer to the end. Um, but we wanna make sure that you get the stuffing all the way up into the tip. So that's something to think about. I usually wait until I'm about halfway to put, to start stuffing it because once you put the stuffing in, it just gets a little bit more awkward to sew, but it's not too bad.

OK. All right. So at this point, I'm gonna put a little stuffing in and just make sure that you're really getting stuffing all the way up into the tip. So use kind of a small amount at first and make sure that you're pushing it all the way up into the tip where that fold is the top of your little cardinal head. Ok.

And then you don't need to, you don't need to stuff, you know, like I, I usually leave my stuffing a little further in so that I don't have stuffing, getting caught in my yarn as I'm stitching. But you don't wanna get too far before you have to stuff it because then it gets a little bit more awkward. So, yeah. OK. Add a little bit more and you want, you want your bird to be fairly firm, you don't want it to be, you know, you want it to be firm enough that it's gonna hold its shape.

OK? So even if someone squishes it, it'll spring back or it will kind of resist the squish a little bit. OK? And now when I get kind of closer to those markers, I will stop and count up my stitches to make sure I have the same amount on each side. So 1234 and then the last marker is five.

But I think we're gonna leave that open where that marker is 1234 and then five would be the next marker. So we have the same amount of stitches on both sides. If you did not like say, for example, well, if you add extra stitches on this side, what that means is when you're going through, you can go through one of these stitches twice as you're going through each of these once and then it'll, um, even out. So it's always best to check that when you're a little ways away from the edge, you don't wanna check it on the, you know, when you have like only a couple stitches left because then it's really hard to make that look nice. And even so we're just gonna finish up here and we will just leave our yarn tail just hanging out.

Um, just in case we need it later, we might not need it because I think we'll have a yarn tail from the bird's tail that we're sewing on here, but just in case we need it, we're just gonna leave it there. So you're not looking cute already. All right. So next thing we're gonna do is the tail. We are gonna start with a chain of eight stitches.

So again, we make ourselves a slipknot however you like to do that. And we're gonna chain 81234567 and eight. We're gonna start with the second chain from the hook and work into the bottom of the chain. Once again, we did this before when we made the face. So we're gonna roll it over till we see those horizontal dashes.

We're gonna skip that first chain. We're gonna begin with the second chain and we're gonna do a half, double crochet into the next four stitches. So, one, two, just a reminder on the half, double crochet it's a yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up, yarn over, pull through three. That's our half, double crochet. We've got three of them now and here's our fourth and then we're gonna single crochet into each of the next three stitches.

One to three. When we get to the end, we're gonna just chain one and turn and then on the next row, we're going to single crochet into the back loop of each of the next three stitches. So the back loop, that what that means is instead of inserting your hook underneath both loops, how you normally do? So underneath that v normally you would put your hook right here, but we're gonna skip that front loop, which is right here and we're gonna work underneath the back loop there. So just into the back loop and this gives it kind of a ridged appearance so that it looks a little bit more like feathers.

All right. So we're not working into our turning chain. We're gonna start with that second cha uh second. Well, sorry, this is actually the first stitch. We're skipping the turning chain.

We're gonna start with that first stitch and we're gonna work a single crochet into the first three stitches. So one, two and three, and then we're gonna do four, half, double crochets still working into that back loop. So one, two, three and four. Now we're gonna chain one and turn our work just like we're turning a page in a book just like that. So we can work back across and we're gonna do this pretty much the same thing we've been doing on this end is always gonna be the half, double crochet stitches and there's always four of those.

And then on this end, there's always gonna be three single crochets. OK. So in this way, we're making like a trapezoid kind of piece, it's gonna flare out more at this end and be a little narrower at this end. OK. So let's do those four, half, double crochets.

One, two, three and four. And then we're gonna do three single crochets, one, two and three, then we're gonna chain one, turn our work and repeat. So three single crochets here. 123, because this is the narrow end and you'll start to see after you work a couple rows, you'll, you'll just be able to look at it and tell which end is your single crochet end and which end is your half, double crochet. And you can just kind of read your stitches and know um which one you're supposed to be doing?

So there is our half, double crochet chain one turn again, same thing working in that back loop. And so we're just gonna continue repeating these two rows um until we have 12 stitches. I mean, sorry, 1212 rows. All right. Let me just finish this one row here and then I'll show you what that looks like when we get a little further.

OK. So you can see it's already wider here on this end. N on this end, this is the single crochet end. That's the half, double crochet end. We're always working into the back loop.

OK? We're just gonna continue doing that until you get 12 rows and I'll show you how to count those up. All right, this is what it'll look like. So to count your rows, um every time you, you can kind of see these little grooves. So this is one row, two rows, three, oops, sorry, 123456789, 1011 and 12.

OK. So it might be easier to think about this as counting by twos. Every time you see this is like a really distinct line here. OK. So this would be one and two.

And so you've got two rows here and every time you see those very distinct lines, that's two more rows. So this would be 2468, 1012. OK. That's how, you know, you have enough and then you're just going to cut your yarn and bring it through. Um And then we're gonna stitch this together.

So this becomes basically like a little tube like that and we're going to be seaming it along one side of the tail. So I am gonna go ahead and thread this yarn needle here with my yarn tail and we're gonna seam these two together, these two edges together and I'm just gonna do a whip stitch between the two edges. Nothing fancy here. And this will just remain on the side of the tail. We'll just kind of fold the tail flat.

It looks like I've got a question here. Oh. Selita Richmond is asking how long does it take to start? Take, start to finish approximately? Oh.

this is a really quick project actually, for me it takes me probably about maybe an hour and a half or so to finish up a bird. Um But you know, if you're making your first one, it might take a little longer. It just is a little bit, you know, it just depends on how long it takes you to get things pinned in place. And um you know, everything kind of situated. Uh because most of it, the crocheting seems to be very quick.

All right. So I am going to, because I ended up over here. I also want to sew the bottom of my tail closed. I'm going to just slide my needle through those stitches that I just made. So that way I can stitch across the bottom of the tail as well.

So I'm just keeping that seam on the side squishing it flat and then I'm gonna do just a whip stitch along this edge just to make it nice and flat and make sure when you're doing this that you are seaming the half double crochet end. OK? See how it, how it flares out. You should be seaming the wider end here, not the narrow end, that end is gonna get stitched to the back of the bird. All right.

So we've semed it all up and now I'm just gonna kind of weave in that yarn tail so that my seam won't come undone, making sure I'm kind of splitting through some of those yarns and then I'm gonna cut that end off. Ok. So there's our little tail and we can sew that into the back of the bird. So if you want to or you know, if you feel like your stitches need to be blocked, this would be a good time to block it. You can wet, block it, um or you can steam block it so wet, blocking.

That would mean that you just get it wet, squeeze the water out, kind of pat it flat and let it dry. If you're steam blocking it, then you just get out your eye. I put it at a high heat setting um with lots of water, lots of steam and hold it above your work to kind of make sure that the, you know, you're not touching your work at all, you're just letting the steam warm up your piece. Um and then you can kind of shape it with your hands and let it dry. I feel like my tail looks pretty fine, pretty much.

Ok? So I'm just gonna leave it I'm not gonna block this. Um, and probably many of you can skip that step as well, but, you know, it just depends on what your piece looks like. And if you're happy with it or if you wanted your tail to be a little bit flatter that would also flatten it out as well. All right.

So we are going to remove those two stitch markers in the back of our bird there and actually I, I'm gonna get rid of one of these yarn tails because I feel like that's just too much stuff in the way. So I'm gonna weave this one in here because I already have a nice long yarn tail from, from my tail that I'm gonna use to sew my tail to the body. So I'm gonna weave that in here just like that, cut off my yarn tail. And now I am going to use this yarn tail to sew my tail into the end of the bird. Ok.

So here's our little opening in the tail. I'm gonna put just a little bit more stuffing in there. You don't want the stuffing. You don't want there to be too much stuffing in there because then you won't be able to fit your tail in and you won't be able to fold this flat because this is how this needs to be stitched. You end up folding this flat and you can see this is going to kind of go up a little here.

It's not gonna go straight across cross just like this edge, it's gonna go up a little there. That's OK. We're stitching the tail into there and it's gonna be just fine. So if that's happening to you and you're wondering if that's right, it's OK. That's how, it's, that's just how it is.

So we're gonna place this tail into that little opening there. So I'm just gonna kind of tuck it in place and you just wanna make sure that you are covering up like this little indentation should be on top of your tail. So I'm gonna run my needle over here because I think it'll help if it's coming from here actually. And I can begin my first stitch, make sure making sure that I am going through right there because what we don't wanna see, we don't want there to be a gap. We don't want it to be like this and then you see stuffing there.

So we wanna make sure we're pulling our tail far enough in and we're flattening this out enough that we're gonna be covering up any of that stuffing or any little gap that could be happening right there. So I'm gonna just take a little stitch here through the tail. I'm just going through both layers of the tail and then I'm gonna stitch it back to that little kind of that v in the bottom of the bird like this just to anchor that and you can go ahead. I mean, if you'd like to just pin that instead of doing, doing it this way. Go ahead.

I just sometimes stab myself with the pin when I'm doing that and sewing these little tiny things. So I'm just gonna make sure that I really get that stitch anchored there first before I try to stitch the rest of the tail in place. And at this point, you can sew through everything flattening this tail right here. So I am going to push my needle from here from this little V OK. It's just in the body fabric now and then I'm going to push it down through both layers of that little tail we made and I'm going to push it through the top center here of the body on the top of that, sitting on the top of the tail.

OK. So, you know, depending on how you want your tail to look, this kind of bends the tail like this. If you are matching up that V with this top edge here, it kind of just makes it go like this and like that, which is what I liked. Um But if you wanted your tail to be sticking up more like that, then what you could do is you could stitch this edge of your bird a little further up on your tail and this edge of your bird a little further down on your tail to get a different shape there. So you can really play around with what shape it is that you want um, the tail to be in.

All right. So I'm just sewing through all the layers here, sewing through the body through the tail out through the top of the body. And I'm making whip stitches that go over the edge. See how I, I came out here and I'm going over the edge of the body and down through the tail. And the reason that I'm doing that is because I don't want there to be a super distinct line cutting across where the body joins with the tail because to me, that seems kind of weird because you would just have feathers kind of skimming over that.

So I'm trying to sort of obscure that there are two separate pieces here by doing the whip stitch over that edge. Ok? And that's what it's looking like so far. And now I need to make sure that I go back and stitch across the other edge there or the other side of the tail. Sorry, I only did half of it.

And Salita is saying thanks perfect project to make during a movie or a ball game. Yes, exactly. It's just a quick little thing and it's fun and um you know, it makes a nice gift or like a gift topper, like if you wanna wrap, wrap a gift for the holidays and add your bird to it, that would be really cute. I know, you know, of course, it doesn't have to be for the holidays, but I know a lot of us associate Cardinals with that, you know, winter time and, um, and sometimes with the winter holidays as well. So, all right.

So here we have it stitched all the way through. I stitched across those edges. Now, I am going to weave in my ends and if you did this and your tail is twisting off to the side or doing something unexpected, um, you could try giving it a little bit of steam or something like that to, uh, to reshape it. If, if you're having any trouble with that, it shouldn't. But, you know, sometimes when we sew things, especially if for somebody who's a little less experienced at sewing your pieces together, things can get a little wonky.

Sometimes. I know people have trouble with the sewing part of making amateur roomy sometimes. All right. So the next part we're gonna do is the wings. So to start the wings, we are going to, again, start with that same, um, invisible or sorry, the adjustable loop.

So we're gonna flip that over onto our strand connected to the ball, gonna bring that up here. Oops like that, make a chain and then you can work around this way or I'm going to flip my, flip my, um, circle so I can work across it double stranded there. And then I'm going to do six single crochets into that circle. So this is just like how we started the body except that we are only placing six single crochets in there and not 10. So I've got, let's see, 12345 and six.

OK. And then I'm gonna pull on that beginning yarn tail, hold that to the outside and then I'm gonna con continue working around in a circle on the next round. We're gonna do two stitches in each stitch around. So 12345 and six. OK, so we're gonna do two single crochets here.

One and two. I'm gonna place the stitch marker in the first of those single crochets and then we're gonna do two single crochets into each of the next five stitches. So one to three, four and five. So now we have a total of 12 single crochets. I'm just gonna remove that for a minute and on the next round, we're just gonna work one single crochet into each stitch around.

So there's our first stitch marking that again. Um Let's see. Oh Deb Parsons is saying really cute, Cardinal. Thank you, Deb. That was nice of you.

Um And Sarah is wondering why do you block crochet? I never heard of it before. OK. So blocking, blocking happens in knitting and crocheting and pretty much lots of yarn crafts. Um Blocking is basically just a way to kind of make your stitches look a little more, even a little more tidy or lay flat or also to give it more drape.

So there's, it's basically just a finishing thing. Like, if you are sewing a lot of times when you're done, you, if you're making a new project, you would iron things as you go and then kind of steam it or iron it when it's done. It's just a way of kind of setting everything to make it look really good. Um, ok. And so here we are just working one single crochet into each stitch around.

So two, three, 456, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 and 12. And you'll start to see your piece kind of cupping. You wanna pull that cup so that you're looking at the right side of your work and the right side of your work is gonna be on the outside of the cup. All right. So now for the next few rounds, we're gonna be doing a, a decreased stitch at the very beginning and then we're gonna be working the rest of those stitches.

So we are stacking our decreases on top of each other. Um Intentionally. So here is the, that's the first stitch of the round. So we're gonna combine those two stitches together by doing a decrease. I like to do.

Um What I call, well, it's a, it's an invisible decrease. It's maybe a little bit different than some, some other people's invisible decreases because I will insert my hook underneath the front loop of the next stitch and then I insert my hook under both loops of the following stitch. A lot of times the standard invisible decrease. You just go underneath the front loop of each of the next two stitches and then you say you'll crochet them together. Um I like to add that se that back loop of that second stitch because it's not hard to do.

And I just feel like it's a little more solid and for something like Amaga roomy, you're less likely to see stuffing through there. So I yarn over, pull up my loop and now I have, oops, I didn't pull it all the way through here. Let me show you that once more time, one more time. OK. So I'm inserting through that front loop of the next stitch underneath both loops of the following stitch yarn over and pull up my loop, pulling it through both lips of both loops of that second stitch and pulling it through the front loop of that first stitch we inserted.

Now we have two loops on our hook. Then we're gonna yarn over and pull through two just to finger. Um finish up a regular single crochet. OK? We'll be doing that a few more times.

So if that was confusing, um I'll be doing it again. So I'm gonna replace my stitch marker in that very first stitch of the round and then I'm gonna work a single crochet into all the rest of the stitches of that round. So back to the blocking thing, we don't often block Amigurumi usually. So I don't know if you're more of an Ayumi uh maker, but maybe um uh that might be a little bit less known to a roomy makers. But um blocking is very helpful, especially for garments, hats, things that you wear, things that you wanna have drape or if your stitches are not very even you can fix things with blocking.

All right. So we've made it all the way around. I pulled my hook or pulled my um my stitch marker out and now I'm going to do another one of those invisible decreases. So I'm gonna insert my hook underneath the front loop of the first stitch and insert from front to back underneath both loops of that second stitch yarn over. I'm gonna pull through all three of those loops.

So the, the two loops of the second stitch and the front loop of that first stitch. Now, we have two loops on our hook, we yarn over and complete our single crochet just like that and put the, and put the uh stitch marker back in and then we're gonna single crochet all the way around until we get to that stitch marker again, just like that. OK? And then we've gotten to the stitch marker again. So we're gonna, we're gonna keep doing the same thing a decrease right at the beginning and then work your way around.

Decrease at the beginning. Work your way around. Ok. So that you're gonna do that until you only have six stitches left. So let's see, that would be you're doing a total of, you're doing nine full rounds in this wing starting from the very beginning, ok.

So there'll be a nine rounds, but you'll know that you're done with your, with your wing once you end up with just six stitches left and your wing will look like this. Ok. And you can see it's pretty subtle, but one side of the wing is angled a little bit more. So if I tilt it this way, this is where all of our decreases were right here. And I um I in the instructions, I tell you to place that downward when you're putting it onto the body.

So I just want you to take a note and see if you could tell a difference. Maybe it's easier to see on this side, see how the rows are kind of slanting in this direction and then the edge of it is going like this. Whereas if you look at how the rows come into this edge, that's more like perpendicular. But if you look at this edge, they kind of make more of a, a slanted line here. So this would be the bottom edge of your wing.

But you know what if you, if you can't tell the difference and you put it on your bird and it looks good, then it's good. You don't need to worry about it. All right. So, after you've fastened off, after, after you've done your last round there, then you're going to thread your yarn tail on your needle and then you're going to just put your needle through all those front loops that you had left over. Ok.

So I'm just weaving it through those front loops going all the way around like that and then you're gonna pull on it until the wing comes to a little tip to kind of close that hole and you can weave in your end and make sure that it's, you know, you're, you're splitting through some of those yarns so that you're, the tip of the wing is not gonna come undone. All right. And I'm gonna clip that and you will do the same thing to the other wing, which I will, um, I think I might stop on that and that way I'll have enough time to show you all the beak stuff, which is coming up next. OK. So when you place your wings, you are going to just kind of look at the picture and about, you know, just pay attention to that bottom angle of the wing that should be facing downward.

You're gonna place them both on and I like to place them at the same time just so that I kind of get a feel for what it'll really look like. And if you want your wings to be up or down wherever you want your wings to be. Um, then go ahead and pin that into the side of the body. So I'm going to pin this wing in the other wing. I have a little bit more work to do.

So I'm going to, um, I'm not gonna pin that one right now, but I would pin them both just so that you can make sure that you're getting them in the spot that you want them to be in. I'm gonna move this one forward just a little bit and then to sew them together, you will take your yarn tail and then you're gonna go into your wing. I have my, my needle is inside my wing and then it's going to come out on the back side of my wing here and take a little kind of like a little bite or a little, you know, stitch or two out of the body like that. And then I'm gonna go back into my wing and then I'm gonna go up sliding it inside my wing like that. And then I'm gonna go back into the body up here, take a little bite and go back into my wing.

So basically, you're just trying to sew the backside of your wing. You're not whip stitching around the edges of your wing. You're just trying to sew the very backside of the wing where it is touching the bird to the bird. Ok? I just kind of taking these little stitches on the backside, going in and out through the bird and in through the body or sorry, in, through the wing and through the body.

OK? And then when you feel like that is attached to how you want it to be, I'll do one more stitch here. OK? And then you can just weave in your ends. And if you've got already gone back and forth a bunch of times, you don't need to go too crazy on the weaving of the ends.

So there we go, put that yarn and then you'll sew the other one on. So then the last thing, well, two things, we have the hanging loop and the beak. So let's go to the beak. So we're gonna pick out our beak color whatever you chose for that. And we're gonna change seven.

So I'm gonna leave a little bit of a yarn tail here. And then I'm gonna go ahead and chain seven stitches. So, 123456 and seven. And I'm gonna start with the second chain from the hook and work into the bottom of our chain. Now, this is the thing that we keep on doing.

We've already done this and we're gonna do a half, double crochet into that second back bump or that second chain. So there's our half, double crochet and then we're gonna do a single crochet into the next stitch and then a slip stitch into each of the next two stitches, one and two, and then a single crochet into the next stitch and then a half, double crochet into the following stitch just like that. And then you can fasten off. And if you didn't leave a long tail at the beginning, you can leave a long tail here. Either way, we're just gonna fasten off and you might be thinking, wow, that doesn't look like a beak at all.

That's because we haven't finished it. We're gonna sew it up first. So we're gonna take this piece, see how it's a little wider over here, a little narrower in the middle. We're gonna fold it at the midpoint there like this, just fold the two ends together and then we're gonna stitch along each side of the beak to create that um that beak shape and it'll be, you know, doing it double layered like this. It helps you to be able to shape it, but it also, you know, helps it to be a little bit more stiff and substantial when you stitch it onto the bird.

So I'm just doing a whip stitch right along that edge there, just like that. And then I'm going to slide my needle through to the other side and so I can stitch along the other edge too, just stitching through. I'm putting my needle underneath both loops along the edge of that beat there and making things this tiny, it can be if you've never done this before. It can be a little bit frustrating at first because, you know, it's kind of hard to hold on to things this small and sew them. Um, but it does get easier with practice.

It's one of those things where, you know, you just have to be patient. Don't think that you're gonna sew that just because the beak is tiny doesn't mean it's gonna take two seconds to make, you might, might take you a little bit more time just to get this stitched here. All right. So now we have this little thick kind of triangular piece and I put the two seams of the beak on the sides of the face. So if you're looking at the bird in this way, I put one seam over here and one seam over here.

And so I just stitched it onto this black section of the face here, kind of between the eyes, just stitch in and again, you can go ahead and pin this in place if that's helpful. Sometimes I find though that just getting one stitch to try to anchor the little tiny thing that I'm sewing sometimes that is actually more helpful to me than getting a pin in there because the pin always ends up snagging my yarn and then it just becomes a problem. Um, but you know yourself and you can decide, you know what works for you, what works best for you. All right. So I am stitching this a little bit towards the bottom of that black.

Let me show you here, there's a little bit more black on top of the beak than there is on the bottom. There's just like a little crack of the, the black on the bottom of the beak. Um But you know, as you're making it, you just take your time when you're putting your pieces together because that is what, you know, making the face of the bird is what's gonna make it really cute. Um So just take your time with really any amateur roomie that you're making. It's always the face that people have trouble with and you have to be like a little bit more patient with yourself when you're working on the face.

Yeah. All right. Looks like I accidentally grabbed a little piece of that yarn and I didn't mean to, but that's ok. I'm just gonna push the beak down just a little bit and cover that up and then I'll show you how to do this, the hanging string in just a moment here. And I think for me, I grabbed a needle that was just a little wider than I normally use.

Um, and I would recommend is trying to stick with a needle that's just big enough for your yarn to fit through. Um, because when you're doing Amega Romi, it really does help to have a sharper needle or a, or a narrower needle because you're not gonna be distorting your stitches as you're pushing your needle through. Here we go. That looks a little cuter there. And then you can go ahead and weave, you can in order to weave in your tails, you can just poke them all the way through.

I'm poking it all the way through the beak into the, into the bird itself here and then I'm just gonna weave it in back here underneath so that you can't see the gold color because it's way too hard to weave in your, in your ends in that little beak. There's just no room too tiny, gonna poke that little in. Then there we go. OK. So the last thing to do and of course, you were just weave in this end as well.

But the last thing to that you're gonna do is you're going to cut a little piece of your twine or whatever you're using maybe about eight or 10 inches long or so. And you can use a needle to bring that through the back of your bird. And then you have to find the balance point of your bird. So for me, it was right behind, you can see where all that very first round came in when I found the balance point. It was just behind that.

Um, but this will kind of depend on exactly where your wings are, how much you stuffed it. You know, it, it will depend on a lot of things, but that would be the first place I would try. So take a little stitch there and bring one end through and this might balance a little differently because I only have one wing on. But actually it looks pretty good. So if I did this and the head was dipping downward like that, that would mean I would need to move my balance point closer to the head.

If I put, if I strung this through and then the tail was dipping downward, that would mean that I needed to put my balance point a little closer to the tail to kind of bring it up right a little bit. But really you don't need to move it very much. I don't think in order to make a balance. So at this point, once you find your balance point, you can just tie this in a knot. Um oh Barbara is saying, can this ornament be used for purposes other than decoration such as a gift topper?

Absolutely. You can use it for whatever you want to use it for. It can just be, you know, it could be a gift toper. It can just be like a little g you don't even have to put the string through. I mean, maybe, you know, and make a cute little stuffed toy for a kid or um you know, a kid who's not gonna chew on and choke on the eyes, I should say slightly older than three kid.

Um But yeah, you can use it for whatever you like. Ok. So I've tied a knot right here. Then I am going to clip my end. So they're a little shorter and I'm gonna pull that knot down into the bird.

Excuse me? And then I'm going to just use my needle to pull that yarn tail through. Let's see. Oops, there we go. Ta da now you can't see it and the bird is done except it needs one more wing, I guess.

But excuse me, pretty close. All right. Well, thank you everybody so much for being here. I really appreciate um your comments and it is always so much fun to teach these cute little toys and I will see you at my next live. Thank you very much.

Bye.