Cute Owl Plushies!

So a friend of mine sent me a picture of these really cute little owl plushies that someone was making and selling on Etsy.com for around $70. Yikes! I couldn't believe that people would pay that much for something that looked so simple to make! So after examining the picture of these cute little owls...and a girls craft night coming up I headed out to the fabric store and got everything I needed to make them. I must say they don't look exactly like the ones on Etsy because I had to make my own pattern for them. (which was simple but obviously not exact to the Etsy owls.) Also I notice that the way I ended up gathering the owls middle is not the way that the Etsy owls were gathered. That part is still a mystery to me and I am now compelled to experiment with it until I figure it out. (I will let you guys know if I figure it out) However they still ended up being very cute perched on my bookshelf.


Here is what you will need!

A pattern (you will have to make one. A good tip is to fold your paper in half and draw one side of the pattern piece and cut then unfold, this will make it symmetrical.



Fabric (I used 3 different fabrics in each owl.)
Some Felt (I used gray for the eyes and red for the heart.)
Embroidery floss (I would suggest orange or yellow for the beak and colors that coordinate with or accent your choice of fabric.)
Embroidery needles
Straight pins
scissors
Buttons for the eyes
Stuffing (I used poly-fil)
sewing machine (optional)




Step One Start by pinning your pattern pieces to the fabric. (body=1st fabric; belly=2nd fabric; wings and bow=3rd fabric)
The eye circles are cut from the felt as well as the heart for the girl owl. Once you have all your pieces cut out you are going to arrange the felt eyes and the belly on the body where you like it and pin down. With your embroidery floss stitch them down. Now you are going to want to stitch on the buttons and the beak. (for the girl owl add eyelashes and the felt heart.)




Step Two Now you can pin the two body pieces together right sides facing each other so that the wrong sides are facing out. You can stitch it together by hand or use your machine. You need to leave an opening on both the top of the owls head and the bottom of the owls body for turning and stuffing. You are also going to want to leave little gaps on each side of the neck so you can do a gathering stitch. Here is a picture to help show what I mean.




Step Three Turn right side out. Add your gathering stitch and gather. Now you can stuff and stitch the openings closed. Now you can add the finishing touches. I decided to make stitches with the embroidery floss around the wings and the bows. I thought it looked cuter. Stitch the wings to the body then give the boy owl a bow tie and the girl a hair bow.





These were really fun to make! I had never used embroidery floss before and I really enjoyed working with it. I'm going to have to use it more often. Maybe I will teach myself to cross stitch! I made both of these owls for under $20 and I have enough of the materials left over to do quite a few more.