Owl Know How - Make Your Own Owl

To encourage our readers to take a leaf out of Cornelia's book (so to speak) and start making their own owls, we devised a pattern for a simplified version of the owls in the book. The pattern is tucked into an envelope in the back cover of Owl Know How.

Cat's owls, and in fact all of Cat's creatures, are made without a pattern and are built in a free-form sculptural way, so we decided it would be best to develop a pattern that is still very cute and owly but is simple enough for people of any crafting level to undertake.

This is what we came up with - you can make it out of felt OR paper - we hope you like it!

1. Select the felt for your owl.
– 1 colour for eyes (black)
– 1 colour for face
– 1 colour for body
– 5 different colours for feathers. Then cut out the pattern template.

2. Cut out all pattern pieces. Pin pattern pieces to felt and cut around them.

3. Sew the body pieces together, leaving a small opening at the bottom to stuff your owl. Our owls are stitched on the outside with open blanket stitch but you can use any stitch you like.

4. Stuff your owl, making sure you fill the small parts of the ears. Sew up the rest of the owl body.

5. Sew or glue the chest feathers onto the body of your owl, starting at the base of the body with colour 7 and moving upwards through the colours.

6. Sew or glue the wing feathers onto the wings, making sure you have a left and right wing for your owl and not two the same.

7. Sew the flat edge of your owl wings to either side of your owl.

8. Sew or glue the eyes onto your owl’s face.

9. Using black cotton, embroider a small beak onto your owl’s face like this:  V

10. Sew or glue 3 face feathers on either side at the top of your owl’s face.

YAY! You made an owl!

11. Sew or glue the owl face onto the head of your owl.

Yay! You have made your own little owl!

- Isobel and Cat x