As there are a lot of bird spotters among my friends and family, I’ve had quite some appeals for knitted birds. So I’ve taken up the venture of cloning different species in a knitted collection. Nowadays, the kids in my family actually collect these birds and I’m always delighted when they can actually spot and identify a species without even leaving the house!

“The Twelve Days of Christmas“ is a famous English Christmas carol, dating from 1780. It counts down a gaggle of gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas, the time span known as Christmastide or Twelvetide, between the 24th of December and the 5th of January. This holiday season knit your own Christmas birds and there will be an unwrapping of feathery flocks of partridges, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds (common blackbirds), geese and swans.

Each Christmas bird is an easy to medium, fast and fun project, that can be finished in an evening or so. These 6 to 7.5 cm birds were knitted on 2.25 mm double pointed needles (UK 13, US 1) in lace gauge yarn and the tiny beaks were knitted on 1 mm double pointed needles.
Everything can be done in a heavier yarn and will turn out slightly larger.
There is knitting flat and in the round, intarsia colorwork, loop stitches (explained in the text) and some i-cords.

Only small amounts of yarns are needed, so a Christmas bird is a great project to use up any scraps you have lying around.

The colors in the next section are mere suggestions, but the use of more different colors adds to the life-like appearance of your bird. Small and cheap cartons of lace-gauged, but sturdy mending yarn (like Scanfil) can provide you with a considerable, affordable array of yarns in all manner of hues.

These birds make fantastically festive hanging ornaments fitting to spruce up any Christmas tree.

Merry Chickmas! Viv