Isn't she lovely! (an owl doll tutorial)

So I love photo tutorials! Photo tutorials are my new favorite thing on the internet, it's amazing to me that thru blogs and people's websites how much is accesable to us! so I decided I was gonna do my very own!

I have a thing for owls that started when I was 4... you say how do you know, how can you remember so far back??? Well my grandpa died when I was 5 and I know he used to scold me for fiddling with his AWESOME owl clock with bakelite eyes that told the time... kinda creepy though when it's 9:25... so I know owls are kinda trendy right now, so why not join in, cuz I love to be trendy!!! and make a cute little owl doll for my girlfriend's daughter's birthday! And lucky you are the benefactors of this labor of love as well... So if sewing isn't your thing feel free to skip on down to another post, or maybe you'll see how incredibly easy this is and you'll want to learn and start making some of your very own crafty creations!

Here we go!
You will need:

hoaky owl drawing for pseudo pattern (done on 8x11 paper)
4 -8x11 pieces of felt
2 coordinating pieces of fabric, or not if you're feeling kinda crazy!
Some frilly ribbon or lace
fiber-fill or batting

Now get the two colors of felt that you want for the front and back and begin to cut out the pieces of your owl using your pattern, feel free to cut a little extra room for your seam-allowance and don't feel like it has to be perfect, just go for the general shape...

Now take your pattern and cut out the wings, as you can see here, I wanted mine a little bigger than what I had drawn so I cut the wings a bit bigger
Now pin your patterns wings to your fabric of choice and cut around and now get your coordinating fabric and cut out the piece that you'll use for the chest feathers...

Note: cut the chest feathers part bigger on the sides so that it can sit underneath the wings and get sewn down when you get to that part (see below)

Now get the scraps from the color you used on the back side of your owl and pin the top of your chest feather pattern and cut the arch at the top then scallop the bottom edge (see below,) remembering to keep it a bit wider than what will show, so that you will catch it when you sew your wings down
Then cut your coordinating piece of frilly ribbon or lace... then lather, rinse, repeat... Ok skip the later and the rinse, but repeat until you have 4 rows of scalloped felt and frilly ribbon...

Ok so after you have that all layed out, it's time to give her some really cute big eyes... I really liked how having big round perfect circles looked, so I used the bottom of my cup to make an imprint to see if that was big enough for me then I traced that size onto a piece of paper

So I did the same as before, I pinned my pattern to my white felt and cut out my circle, then I did the same with the black then later went back and cut the black slightly smaller than the white... I did the same with the nose... I started out here with two small triangles for the eye sparkle, but decided that I like another set of circles instead in the end.

Now it's time to sew!!!

Deconstruct your owl and set your pieces all aside...
We'll begin with the chest feather pieces and the fabric that sits underneath
Pin your fabric to your owl and sew it down, then begin to sew your scalloped felt at the top followed by your frilly ribbon...

leaving a bit of space so that your fabric shows thru a little bit...

Now pin your wings onto your owl, and begin to sew them down
Note: when you pin the wings it's most important that the wings cover the sides of the chest feathers

I started to go around just once, but then I thought hmmmm if I keep going it's gonna look even more feathery... so I just sewed around and around and around following the pattern of the wing

Now it's time to change your thread out, as you sew your eyes down you'll want white to match... Sew down the first part of your eyes... the whites and if you're really lazy like me and hate changing out the thread more times than absolutely necessary, proceed to sew down the eye sparkle before the blacks of the eyes...

Time to change out the thread to black and sew down the blacks of your owlys eyes...

Then one more time for her little nose... (Note: I cheated here, since I didn't have orange felt, I used white and an orange sharpie!!, I'm so ghetto!)

Now I did a little flower detail on the back of the owl, which it totally optional and since I have 10 million photos on here already, use your imagination and maybe I'll show you one at the end if you just have to know! If you do put a detail on the back, make sure that you have the "right" side out so that when you sew your doll together your sides match!

Now it's time to sew our little owl together! This is very simple... put the "right" sides or the sides that you want to show together, so that they're not showing and proceed to sew leaving a small gap at the bottom to turn right side out and for stuffing... When you have finished sewing her together trim any excess felt off of the edges...

Now turn your little gal "right" side out

and introduce her to her new best friend mr. stuffy stuff... and you guessed it stuff her tight!

(Note: her nose is missing here because I was going to use a cute vintage button, but didn't end up liking how it looked, your nose should be attached at this point)

After you have gotten her as full as you possibly can, paying close attention to her little ears, and getting out all dents and puckers, sew together your hole using a needle and thread...
Guess what! You did it! Or if you're crazy like me, you can keep going... what can I say, I love details!

Sooooo I gave her a cute barrett, by cutting out 2 contrasting colors of felt into the shape of a flower, then sewing on a button with thread detail around it with two loops of grosgain ribbon on the back... I just simply attached it to her little head with my needle and thread...

Lastly to make it special and make sure your lucky recipient will always remember you, I embroidered "To: Friend... Love: Emmy..." my little girl, who contributed by saying "oooohh cool!"

Well I hope you've had as much fun as I have had and I hope if you make one, you'll show me how yours turned out!

Isn't it cool to make something handmade to give to someone special! It used to be that storebought was special, but now it's so much more rare to get that special handmade treat!

Have fun!