Hoot the Owl Halloween Costume

Z wants to dress up as an owl this Halloween. Not just any owl, but this owl - Hoot from the Old Bear and Friends videos.

This is a big deal for us because she went through a phase of being afraid of owls. Every night we had to assure her that no owls were in the room or hovering outside. We told her about all the friendly owls in all the stories and shows she likes, and she finally landed on this owl as the good owl.

So to make her costume, I had to improvise. The owl in the story is more lambswool than feathers, and wears a blue starry dress/apron throughout. I thought it would be better to make it more owly. And more comfortable for a little girl to bounce around and enjoy herself.

Over the months of owl reassuring, I became a big connoisseur of owls. I found a blogs about owls (My Owl Barn is a great aggregater of owls) and sewed owls and generally found myself drawn to anything with an owl on it. Which turns out to be a lot of things.

I started with a long sleeved white shirt and a pair of white leggings. Then I attached felt feathers (a sort of "u" shape) for the owl tummy. These were sewn on, but with a very simple basting stitch that will be easy to remove when she wants to stop being an owl.

The feathers were meant to be in concentric circles, but imperfect ones. It works like an attached bib.

  
Next I cut some wings from an old sheet. These were based on the ones in this tutorial because I thought the shape was just beautiful.

The wings were sewn together with an opening at the neck for turning, and pinked up to make them lay nicely. Then I turned them inside out (being a white sheet, there weren't right sides) and pressed them, sewed the neck shut, and sewed the tops of the back part of the wings together.

The ensemble mid-feathering

I could only find white leggings with lace edging in my short search, but thought a few feathers placed at the cuff would cover that fine.

The wings presented a problem because I wanted them to be more owl than fairy and that meant feathers. I saw this owl cartoon and thought three tiers of feathers on the wings would work out well.
 

First I cut some longer feathers - an elongated "U" really.

Then I placed them in three rows and sewed them down at their base with the machine. This gives them a bit of swing when the wings move.

Last I made a mask, a piece of paper folded in half with a big circle for the eye and a triangle for the ear made a pattern. I used brown buttons as the centers of the eye to be more like Hoot. I knew Z wouldn't want to actually wear the mask, so I attached the mask (with a safety pin) to a white hat she had.

And the final owl having fun. She kept the hat on for about 20 minutes and refused to have the wings attached to her arms because they "flapped better" free. Everybody thought she was dressed as an angel, which was funny. 

Rabbit Fever

I'm still stuck on rabbits.

I tried making a little lion, and I do like him a very lot, but he's no rabbit.

Towards Easter I got inspired by Alice in Wonderland and sewed a White Rabbit and March Hare - complete with vests, a coat and a pocket watch chain. 

John Tenniel's illustrations inspired me and my bunnies weren't capturing them correctly. 
So I moved on.

To another bunny. 

Another literary bunny.

This may be due to the fact that I got some velveteen at SCRAP and hadn't figured out quite what to make with it. It may be that a friend's daughter had scarlet fever and the story got into my head. I tried to introduce some more character into them with surprised or pleading faces - trying to capture the parts of the story when the Velveteen Rabbit learns he has to be burned. They have bendable ears to be more expressive.


I've even toyed with a Runaway Bunny, though I'm not too sure.

And then I saw this marvel of a March Hair from Tim Burton's Alice. Brilliantly mad. And I'm back to Alice.

Pocket Easter Bunnies

These are my latest felt friends and I admit I have gone a bit nuts with them. I've been making them industriously and without regard to natural coloring.

They are smaller than an egg. 

Each has a little pink nose and fuzzy tail. 

They're good for sharing secrets with.

They also like to mill about in groups. They are now for sale so get yours today!

Itty Bitty Lovebirds

I have never been all that into Valentine's Day. However, this year it is everywhere I look, and that could be because I tend to look at craft sites most of the time. So in all this looking it struck me that the thing to do was to join in. Actually, what struck me was that here I was sewing itty bitty birds all the time and there are birds that are perfect for this - lovebirds. Awww!
 

Lovebirds are a sort of social and affectionate parrot (thank you Wikipedia) and there are a number of varieties. They are monogamous and they are often seen cuddling which gave them their name. They are also a key element in the movie "The Birds" so it a natural evolution of my itty bitty birds.

I started making the rosy-faced lovebird as seen above, using green felt for the bodies. I tried painting their faces, which wasn't so good. 

I tried felt applique, which was better. And from behind their faces made a little heart.

Then I tried embroidering the red bit, and that seemed best to me. But when I showed them to people, nobody could tell what sort of birds they were - it wasn't clear. Since I don't expect people to go off researching lovebirds simply because I'm interested in them, I went ahead and made some in a more seasonal color.

The thing about lovebirds is that you sort of want to make them in pairs. So I cut out a set.

I drew a vague half heart shape in pencil and then satin stitched it in red. I whip stitched on the wings.

Whip stitch the back seam...

... and the belly. Now, this is pretty much the same process as the itty bitty birds, so I was a bit slack in documenting it. In fact, I used different birds. I admit it. I'm still making them.

  
Stuff the bird, sew up the belly and paint eyes. I've tried to get the shut eyed look of the cuddling birds above on several of them, but I'm still working on getting it just right.

This part is sort of humorous to me, and that shows my humor. I sew their beaks together in a kissing position.

I added some jump rings and memory wire I had to give them a little space of their own. I'm not sure what to do with them now, as our home becomes increasingly full of 1.75" long birds, but they make me happy and I will wear them out on a chain or something. And sure, I'll "sell" some on Etsy. Does anybody buy there???

Of course, by the time I finished the red birds they were the new favorites.

 This is the template for both the lovebirds and the itty bitty birds.

Busy Book for Z

This past summer we planned a fairly big trip which involved an 11 hour plane ride. Z was 20 months at the time and could sit still for about 12 seconds total. I had read about busy books and thought making one for her would be the perfect answer.

It was not.

She hated the book. She would cry or throw it across the room whenever I showed it to her. Perhaps it was too advanced. Perhaps she resented the time I invested into it. I don't know. She just wasn't going to be calmed on the plane by it. At the time it was a bit heartbreaking, but it's pretty funny now.

And now she likes to rip it apart so it does keep her busy.

This is how I began my collection of felt. I used white denim as the base for the pages and brown denim for the cover because I had it. I tried to spice it up with little embroidered designs here and there. Overall, I think it's a nice distraction.


The unfinished cover.


Button on Flowers.
This is one of the pages that I saw others had done and thought it was brilliant. The little red planter is a pocket.



Velcro Shapes and Fasteners
We practice the colors and names of the shapes as she throws them. She's shown no interest in the zippers, hooks or clips.


Counting and Tie a Shoe
I made the first three counting squares primary colors and the next three secondary colors to sort of subliminally get that information into her. It fell apart on the third set as I didn't find felt at SCRAP in tertiary colors. I don't mind if that didn't work. She likes to untie the shoe and try to put her foot inside.



Close up of the counting page


This page is about finding things.



Some of the things hidden around. The cloud hides an airplane. The kite has a hanglider behind it. The ducks are held on by fishing line which allows them to "swim" back and forth. The water comes off to reveal fish. All the leaves have birds or bugs hidden underneath, and that black circle in the trunk of the tree hides a squirrel.


An extra close up on this, my favorite bird.


Textures and Snap on Balloons
Soft, smooth, silky, bumpy and scratchy (a scouring pad). I tried to make a little carnival by the balloons.


Eddie's Garden
Z loves a book called Eddie's Garden, so this was my homage to the illustrator. The carrots snap on, as do the peas and the pumpkin. The corn, the chard and the sunflower are velcro, and there's a little rabbit hidden near the peas. Lots of busy birds and bugs populate the book, so I tried to copy that (with some problems around the border).


A little pocket to hold all the bits that fall off.

Itty Bitty Bird Tutorial

For most of my life, birds have creeped me out - I've never been a big fan. Not only because of the movie "The Birds" (which I just learned was based on a real incident) after which I could never view any group of birds quite the same. But also because my dad liked to describe them as filthy creatures, full of diseases which takes the romance right out. However, picture books are just full of them, and they can be very pretty. Also, Z loves them, even pigeons, which I cannot abide. So I recently got excited about making birds.

Woodland pictures are chock full of birds. I don't seem to be getting over making small felt animals, so why not add in some birds. The problem of course is scale. The little animals are .. well ... little - Mr. Deer towers at 6" tall. The birds have to be itty AND bitty to work in this world. Oh, and I had to start with robins. Why? I think robins are the most woodlandy. All of which makes a nice little intro into this - the itty bitty bird tutorial.


I have made a LOT of birds in the past few days. Little difficult birds. They do require good felt and good light. And patience.


With a lot of that practice and my own growing prop house for a felt remake of "The Birds", I landed on the pattern I like best. Some aspects were inspired by things I've seen and patterns I've downloaded. I can't thank the kind people who post these things enough. There are pictures of a few different birds being constructed because some of the photos are better on one or the other. I cut out the birds from the best felt I had.


First I sewed on the wings. This is good planning, and has nothing to do with my desire to hide casting on and off.


Then I sewed the back seam.


This is where I think I am so clever. I twisted the tails to line up and used the decorative straight stitches to hold it in place.


Sew on the belly.


Stuff her up. That odd tool is something of Adrian's that he lent me and is never getting back. He claims it is a dental instrument.


On these birds, I've taken to painting the eyes and beaks. I don't know if that is cheating, but it looks better.


I've expanded to the gray birds, canaries and briefly to a bird with open wings. I've even got the little blue bird to add. So the little tree is filling up slowly. Just like in the movie.