Trimmings

I really thought I knew what a partridge looked like. I pictured a mottled brown bird with a little curlicue of feathers on the top of its head, usually nestled in a pear tree. Or maybe walking serenely, leading little bald-headed babies along. Something like that. Having never actually seen a partridge, I based my ideas on cultural references and thought it looked much like a quail. As it turns out, though, the bird I was thinking of really is a quail. Most partridges have no crest on their heads.

I confess to being disappointed in the enlightenment I received from a Google image search. I already had an idea about how to modify the bird pattern I used to make it look like a partridge. Without the little doodad on top of its head, my bird would look more like a sparrow, which is a nice bird but not at all Christmassy. What a conundrum! I debated awhile about what to do, but in the end, I decided to add a little something to the top of my birdie's head. After all, I had already decided not to do a black face for my cardinal, so I'm really going for a loose interpretation here, not realism. With apologies to any ornithologists out there, I present my little partridge:


If you want to make your own quailpartridge, the details are on Ravelry.