Embroidery Birds

This winter has been really goofy so far.  I usually have mood problems when the season turns gray, but this year has been awful.  Dreary wet days with no snow on the ground and just cold mud are not my favorite.  I don't mind if it's cold, but I love the snow.  It brightens up the world.
On that note, my quilting passion is on a slow note right now, so I've turned to some embroidery to feed my craft hunger.
I'm not a fan of redwork, and cross-stitch I wasn't in the mood for, so I picked up some crewel work.  I just copied photos from the internet, enlarged them on the printer, outlined the main parts with a sharpie and then traced them onto cotton chambray.  The soft blue fabric makes an excellent background as it can be sky or water.
Once the patterns was traced, I fused a light weight interfacing to the back of the fabric.  This not only gives the fabric more substance, but helps to hide the threads from the back of the design.
Once the embroidery was done and pressed, I made the backing from fabric fused with heavy interfacing and used scraps of quilt batting in between.  Then I bound the edges just like a quilt and added a hanging sleeve.  They brighten my day!

My mom is celebrating her 77th birthday tomorrow and she's a bird lover too.  Maybe I'll just wrap them up!
So, what have you been working on?