Week 5 - Fabric Scrap Owl

The first thing I will say about this owl is that if I can make it, you can make it. I have only very basic sewing skills - meaning, I know how to thread a needle and make it go in and out of fabric. I don't own a sewing machine, so I did this by hand. ...It will definitely come out nicer for you if you have a sewing machine.

Here's the inspiration pin. Efemera-Ink definitely made much cuter owls than I did! But I had fun with it anyway. Here's her post/tutorial: Wise?

I did a few things differently:

1. I stuffed him with coffee beans instead of stuffing. I wanted him to turn out more like a bean bag than a stuffed animal. Plus, I didn't have any stuffing. Let's not forget to mention that because of this, he smells amazing! 
2. I didn't have any felt, so I used some cloth and buttons for his eyes.
3. I sewed him by hand.
4. I didn't use cardboard in his butt circle. He already sat pretty well on his own because of the coffee beans.

Here's how my owl went:

I didn't have a compass to be able to follow the suggestions on angles, but as long as the pieces have the same length sides, it doesn't matter too much. I used the edge of a small trash can to draw the curve. My pieces were 7 inches long on the straight sides (which resulted in my owl being roughly 3.5 inches tall).

See that massive fold in the fabric? Fixed with Downy Wrinkle Releaser! I hate ironing. Thank you, Downy for keeping me from having a wrinkled owl.

 

I wasn't completely clear at this step whether she sewed up the owl butt before attaching the butt circle. I didn't have much of a choice - the beans kept spilling out and needed to be held in. I got it nice and snug, then attached the butt circle.

As I said before, I didn't include the cardboard in the butt circle - this is just fabric. 

*sigh* My beak didn't turn out quite as nicely. It was hard to get it pointy while hand-sewing it. That's okay though - you can still tell it's a beak.

My finished owl! The only thing I still want to do is protect his eyes from fraying. I'm out of clear nail polish, but once I get some I'll put it around the edges of the fabric to keep it from fraying. If you haven't done this before, it's a great way to keep fabric, ribbons, etc. looking nice.

I left my owl sitting on my nightstand when I was done... maybe the smell of him will wake me up in the morning!