A life-size felt Common Swift in flight with needle felted details, a perfect decorative piece to fly against the wall or to hang from a branch or hook with their scythe-shaped wings out wide.
I was recently asked if I could make a robust felt model swift by an amazing woman who volunteers her time to go into schools and the wider community, promoting Swift conservation and teaching about nature. She was hoping for a swift that offered realism alongside longevity, and that would be strong enough to be handled by supervised adults. This is certainly not a toy and would not be suitable for any children (supervised or not) as it has wired wings. However, the sight of this swift in flight could be a valuable teaching aid as well as a beautiful piece of art as a focal point for talks and demonstrations.
This piece is created from three layers of felt – two 100% wool felt layers enveloping a colourful wool and viscose central layer – sewn together to form a perfect flying swift shape. The wired, outspread wings have been carefully designed for strength and sewn into this permanent pose, balanced so that the swift will look like it is flying from an invisible thread attached to the body, with another at the tip of the furthest wing for wall-mounting.
The head of the swift is re-created and built up in detail using needle felted wool and includes a twinkling eye to the bring the bird to life, hand-cast in resin and painted with archival acrylic inks. The body and wings of the wool bird are shaded and detailed using the painting with wool needle felt technique. Each bird becomes its own unique art work, each one differing slightly as they are hand-made individual art pieces, whilst remaining strong and robust enough to display and carry in a box between events.
Swifts are astonishing birds who spend almost their whole lives in the air – eating and drinking, sleeping and mating on the wing. In fact, nesting and feeding their young is the only time they purposefully come out of the air and into our world below. They nest in old buildings and are faithful to their previous nesting sites. If those building are knocked down, repaired or insulated, their nest site can be lost. New buildings are often made with no nooks and crannies for the returning swifts to find, so they need our help to put up nesting boxes beneath the eaves by the roof.
I am putting up my swift nest box this spring, along with several of my neighbours, as I sold one of my sculpted swifts and used the proceeds to make a wonderful Swift Street here in Whitstable. I couldn’t be happier!
Pre-order Flying life-size wool Common Swift
Mainland UK (not including Northern Ireland)
Postage is by Royal Mail Tracked 48 services or you can choose a Tracked 24 for a faster delivery at the checkout. This is however at a higher cost.
The Rest of the World (see exceptions below)
Postage will be charged at a set fee to cover most costs for that sized item, and a refund will be offered if your parcel can be sent for less than anticipated for your specific part of the world. Additional purchases in the same parcel create savings on postage costs overall, compared to ordering each item separately.
If the postage is considerably more than anticipated, I will reach out to discuss next steps with you as soon as possible.
(This is the easiest way for me to ensure I get you the best deal whilst still covering my costs at this time.)
Mainland Europe and Northern Ireland
Unfortunately I am not currently able to send my birds here, due to new EU regulations.
I feel very sad about this, so do check out my Collection information below if you are ever in the UK
Mainland United States of America
Items that are eligible for posting to the USA will have any applicable tariff charges included in the postage costs quoted. Other internal taxes or duties liable on your order will not be visible to me and so those costs will need to be met by the purchaser.
