Puffin Proud

Besides being Iceland's national bird, the puffin is also the provincial bird of my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is a unique bird who returns to Newfoundland each summer to breed after months of living in the ocean.  Clumsy looking fliers and funny looking walkers, they are however, agile swimmers and divers.

Tanja Berlin at Berlin Embroidery offers this kit of the puffin to work in needlepoint.  I worked a similar one also in needlepoint years ago but lost it.

                           

The puffin provides a delightful image for all sorts of products and has been cross stitched, knitted, painted, carved...you name it and you can find puffin items of all make and manner.

And here far away from Newfoundland I use a little plush puffin on my key ring.

And I have wooden ones that join the other birds on my Christmas Bird Tree.

Of the many, Puffin Palooza is a great website with all sorts of information about these comical birds.

One of my relatives used a puffin wedding cake top, similar to this one.  Love the detail in this one.



A puffin paper pieced by Tartankivi on Craftsy. As you can imagine, it is a popular image for quilts.

                 

 I've shown you my grandparent's house perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean; nearby there is a special tiny island where many puffins summer.  A unique peninsula of land almost reaches this island.  Over the years I've spent many hours on that scrubby bit of land watching the puffins going about their business on their little island in the ocean.  It was a fascination I shared with my mother.

And here is a little cross stitch I worked a few years ago.  It features the puffin and the provincial flower, the Pitcher Plant.  The threads by the way, are for the hand quilting I was working on the sides.