Owls

I wanted to make a present for my friend and liked this cute owl bookend in a magazine. I enlarged and cut out the pattern, then started to make my owls. As is often the case I have found, the instructions were unclear, unillustrated and unfathomable. This resulted in two unsatisfactory owls with weirdly large and unsightly beaks. I took the beaks off them and thought I would just add other, smaller beaks. But when I woke up this morning it had all become clear! The way that the beak is made is by folding the top of a cone onto which you have already sewn the beak. A couple of simple illustrations or two slightly longer sentences in the instructions would have made this clear to me on the first attempt. Anyway, I decided to make two new owls, as I wanted them to look better as they are for a present. I ended up making another one for me too, so now I have three.

 They are meant as bookends and sand was suggested as the weight. I only had plastic pellets so mine are not very heavy. They could be pincushions though. or just stand on a shelf. I hope she likes them anyway! My one has lavender in and smells delicious.

 This is the second one I made, and by this point I had realised that you fold the top over the front. So when I took the beak off of this one, the pattern on the fabric worked for the beak. The other one is still beakless!

 To make the ears I used stranded embroidery thread, folded a number of times then sewn into a tassel. Then you need to tease out the strands. All it said in the magazine was to use embroidery thread. I like the effect of the mixed colours. The one below has been teased but not trimmed.

 Here are the ones for my friend, not holding up some bird and nature books. (The books are standing up on their own) I could lay my hands on the bird and nature books easily since my big book sort!

 My lavender owl has found the owl page. He has now realised that he bears little resemblance to a real owl, but he doesn't care because he smells so good.