Owl Fever

I have seen a lot of cute owl toys and fabric around lately and I have pretty much gone gaga over all of it so I decided to make my own version of an owl for my animal-loving son.

I started by cutting two head stone shaped pieces of fleece. Then I cut two eyes, two smaller circles for the iris part of the eyes, a nose, a belly, a pair of ears (three pieces each-two front, two back, and two for the colored inset), two wings (four pieces-two front and two back), two feet (four pieces) , and a tail (two pieces) out of coordinating fleece. I also picked two buttons for the pupils of the eyes.

Using a decorative stitch I added my son's initial to the oval for the belly before I sewed it onto the front panel.

Then I sewed on the nose and eyes. It was fun to move the dark part of the eyes around because changing them gave the owl totally different expressions. I decided that it would be fun for him to look a little crazy so I positioned the eyes that way. To put the eye together, I sewed the little dark part (the iris) of the eye onto the big orange part of the eye and then I sewed a button on top of that dark part for the pupils. Then I sewed the finished eyes onto the body of the owl using a decorative stitch.

Next I sewed all the way around the wings and sewed two stitches from the edge of the wings where they curve up to the top to secure the fleece pieces together.

Then I sewed the ear pieces together. First I sewed the small inset triangles on to the front of the ears and then I sewed the front and back pieces together, leaving the ends open for stuffing.

After that I sewed the top and bottom pieces of the feet together and then I stuffed them, leaving the ends open for stuffing.

I did the same thing with the tail piece; sewing up one side, all the way around the curved part and back down the other side, leaving the end open for stuffing.

To put the whole thing together, I layed each wing down against the front of the owl, crossing them against each other, aligning the straight part of the wings with the sides of the body. Then I turned the ears upside down and lined the straight parts up with the top edge of the head of the owl so that the front pieces were against the front of the owl. I did this so that when I turned the whole thing right-side-out all of the parts would be in the right places.

Then I matched the front and back owl pieces together and, using a straight stitch, I sewed all the way around the owl, leaving the bottom open. After it was sewn up and around both sides I turned it right side out to make sure that both ears and wings were sewn in and I didn't miss catching part of the fabric.

Next I turned the whole thing inside out again and pushed the wings down into the owl so that they didn't catch on the bottom stitch.

Then I measured the width of the owl, laying it flat on a measuring board. I cut a circle of fabric half of that width in diameter for the bottom of the owl so that it would stand up straight. Next I positioned the feet and the tail where I wanted them to be, laying them inside the body of the owl, positioned opposite of how they would turn out and matching their straight parts (where I had put the stuffing in) to the edge of the owl. Then I matched the edges of the circle to the edges of the upside down owl and sewed all the way around the circle, leaving a two inch space for turning it right side out. Then I turned it right side out so that I could check the feet and the tail to make sure that all of the fabric was sewn and there were no spaces or holes in the bottom of the seam.

Then I stuffed the owl and stitched it closed with coordinating thread and it was all done!

The whole project probably took me about an hour and a half since I just figured it out as I went along. And it didn't cost me any extra money because I used scraps of fleece that I already had.

**If you make this project and blog about it please let me know!

I'd love to see how your owls turn out!**