Friday 1 May 2009

From cuckoos to cockatiels


It's May Day! When in England we hear the sound of a cuckoo, it means that Spring is on its way, or some may even say Summer. The only cuckoo I've heard this year, so far, is the one that pops his head out of the "cuckoo clock" and is banned to the garage because of the noise! A few years ago we kept a cockatiel and his name was Popeye because he ate spinach. Sadly Popeye is no longer with us, but before he passed away I created a replica of him in tatting, this was the result. It was adapted from a multicoloured parrot pattern published in the ROT book "Tatting 2000" amazingly written by a lady named Mary Parrott.
(I forgot to say that whenever we went on holiday Popeye used to stay with a lady called Olive - "Olive Oil"!!)

12 comments:

  1. Very nice! The only cuckoo I've ever heard was the one in my dad's clock!

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  2. What a wonderful idea! I've made the parrot by Mary Parrot so I think I could make it a cockatiel too - one of my sons raised cockatiels when he was in high school. Thanks for the idea!

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  3. Poor Popeye. Fancy eating spinach! Very strange bird! LOVE your rendition of a cockatiel

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  4. Happy May Day!! Nice job on redoing the parrot pattern into your Popeye pattern. Good color choices. That is a funny coincidence about Popey and Olive ;)

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  5. BTW....the only cuckoo I have ever heard was in my head. SORRY.....someone had to say it!!

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  6. I have to say I am glad that Gina let me know about this blog. My daughter has a cockatiel bird too...with the same coloring. She is named Pharaoh because we thought it was a male bird...but after the bird layed its first egg...we knew differently. But the name has stuck. I should make this bird for my daughter since it is her bird and since my daughter still lives at home...so does Pharaoh.

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  7. BEAUTIFUL! I have that parrot pattern, but never thought of changing it to make a cockatiel! Great!

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  8. Hi All, thanks very much for your comments. I tatted Popeye quite a few years ago and had almost forgotten about him/her. Actually like Pharaoh (who resides at Sherry's place) Popeye also laid an egg! Apparently if a Cockatiel is vocal its supposed to be a male!!! Who said that women did all the talking?!

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  9. Hi Sally, Wow, Great likeness the the Normal Gray Cockatiel. I have a Cockatiel that looks just like this. I have to make one now. I have made this parrot many times, but not in these colors. Thank you for the great idea. How long did your Popeye live? My Meeko, is 12 years old. I don't know how much longer he will live. He has seizures and I never know if he will snap out of it. We also have a Yellow pearl cockatiel, who is also 12 years old. They are such fun birds to own.

    Thanks for showing your version of this tatted parrot. The first time I tatted it was about 11 years ago. I tatted a bunch of animals and sewed them onto my daughter's lunchbox. Here is a picture of her lunchbox with the parrot & other animals on it. http://caroltats.blogspot.com/search/label/Parrot I also have Jane's Mermaid and Seahorse on it too, which is also two of my favorite patterns from Jane!

    Have a great day!

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  10. Hi Carol, Popeye only lived about 3 yrs and Gromit (the name of his predecessor) only lived for about the same and they were both babies when we got them, bred locally. But both were very affectionate and good company.
    Gosh what a "posh" lunchbox! Very striking and such a lot of work. Thanks for sharing.

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