Jennifer Reilly Diggs' House Chickens

A Warner artist makes feathered friends with no coop required

It’s a bird … it’s a pillow … actually, it’s both. Jennifer Reilly Diggs of Warner has been stitching these amusing objects of art or huggable stuffies, depending on your viewpoint, for the last two years.

It all started when she moved to Warner after her children were grown. She found a charming log home for a full-immersion New Hampshire experience, and it just happened to come complete with two chickens. The adopted chickens became a joke, and to make it funnier, the experienced artist started making fabric chickens. Now her success with the birds is no laughing matter. It’s almost a full-time job to keep the state’s League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s stores stocked with chickens.

Diggs has about a dozen varieties that loosely represent real varieties of chickens and roosters (if you aren’t an ornithologist, that is). The actual Silkie chicken variety is rather charming and easy to emulate as it translates well with the new faux fur fabrics available in the marketplace.

The birds are sized to hug and are stuffed well enough to support a head if they find their way to a couch. Find “Luna Lovely” or “Helen Reddy” ready to adopt on Diggs’ Etsy site or web page along with a flock of others, including a number of “Chicken Littles.” She will also be at the League’s Sunapee craft fair in The Shop at the Fair tent this coming August.