Owl Stuffy

When I was a kid my mom constantly made me gifts. I still have them and have passed them on to my daughter who now plays with them.  For my daughter's birthday I thought it would be fun to attempt a stuffed owl for her.  She's been in love with owls since she was one!  Since her birthday theme is an owl theme this was the perfect opportunity to try to make her something special.  

Here's what I did...

I drew a picture of an owl using the back of some wrapping paper.

I cut out a front and a back.

Using my accent fabrics , I cut out the tummy, wings, and eyes.

I put the back of the owl off to the side and concentrated on sewing the details to the front.  I worked in layers, beginning with the tummy and eyes which are the bottom layers on the front of the owl.

I left quite bit of an edge when I sewed the pieces on.  This is because I wanted them frayed.  If you didn't want the frayed look, you could use a zig zag stitch and stitch right along the edge.

I snipped all around the edges of the eyes and the top of the tummy.

I set the wings on my owl so I knew how long to cut my Rick Rack.

Then I pinned the Rick Rack, removed the wings, and sewed the rows on the tummy.

I placed the wings on and sewed them.  Again, I didn't sew directly on the edge because I was going for the frayed look.

Here is a close up of the cut edges.

Next, I sewed on white fleece for the eyes, orange felt for the beak and more Rick Rack for some detail.

I wanted this owl to have closed eyes so I hand stitched them on.

The eyes made her little face look very sweet.

I  knew I was going to run her through the washer and dryer to make the edges frayed so I went ahead and sewed the outside edges of the wings to the body front.  

While she was washing and drying, I made two rectangles to make a bow for her.

I pinched the rectangles in the middle and put a stitch in to hold the shape.  Then I took a piece of the body fabric and wrapped it around the middle to fancy it up a bit.

I also decided she needed legs so I drew some on my craft paper, cut them out of fabric, stitched them with right sides together, and then turned them right side out.  

I stuffed the legs really tightly and sewed them on to the back of the owl.

I placed the front and backs together and stitched around them.  I left an opening at the bottom to turn her.

I stuffed her and sewed on her bow.

Here she is!  All finished!  

I hope my daughter loves her!