The Little Felt Rooster is a sewing pattern & instructions to make a proud male chicken. The finished rooster measures approximately 14 cm (5 1/2″) from the top of its comb to its feet and 13 cm (5″) from its beak to the tip of its sickle feathers.
When you make your own Little Felt Rooster, you may wonder what colors to pick for the different parts of the bird. The colorful one pictured above is modeled after the Welsummer breed. I chose this breed because of its beautiful shiny copper hackle feathers and greenish sickle (long tail) feathers. But of course, there are many other types of roosters to choose from. As you can see in the above image, I also made a white rooster with black sickle feathers, which I find rather elegant! And needless to say, you can always invent your own color combination for a one-of-a-kind rooster!
So what makes a rooster look like a rooster, and not like a hen?
One of the most outstanding features of a rooster is its sickle feathers, which are those long arching tail feathers that only male chickens have. Obviously, The Little Felt Rooster‘s tail and sickles are not really feathers. But I hope you will agree that its felt sickles capture the essence of real feathers.
Another identifying characteristic of a rooster is its saddle feathers. As their name suggests, they cover the bird’s back like a saddle. To be honest, they were the most challenging part of The Little Felt Rooster to design. After experimenting with a number of different ideas and materials, I finally decided upon the embroidered saddle feathers that you see in the image above. These stitches are simple to make, but they create the beautiful effect of shimmering feathers that I was looking for.
For those of you interested in more ways to distinguish a rooster from a hen, here is a link with some helpful tips.
The Little Felt Rooster is designed to match The Little Felt Hen, another sewing pattern in my collection.
If you would like to create a little barnyard family as pictured above, I have a free tutorial on how to make pom-pom chicks. I originally designed them as ducklings for another pattern, The Little Felt Duck, but they also make adorable chicks for The Little Felt Hen and/or The Little Felt Rooster.
Lastly, you may also be interested in other Little Felt Animals, including the following bird patterns & tutorials in my collection:
