Boo Hoo Owls

Last week a couple of my mommy friends and I got together to let our boys play while we crafted.  Allison had found a cute post on another blog about making Boo Hoo owls so she, Stacey & I decided to give them a try.  Basically, they are small fabric owls with rice filler that you can warm or chill them to help ease your little one's boo boo.

As with all projects that sound simple, this one ate up a little more time than we expected (of course, there was the bit of distraction of having 3 toddlers in the room, lots of toys, Cheerios everywhere and curiosity about what the mommies were up to).  We had all raided our bins of fabric scraps to share.  I sketched a quick pattern.  We each picked a few fabrics, cut out pieces and time was up.  Here's where we left off when all 3 owls were momentarily together (mine is the far right - yes, as you can see, I totally do this in my own special way LOL):

Before I had a chance to get any more progress made, I saw Allison's blog post [which, the above photo was totally stolen from ;)  ] and realized that I had some seriously big crafty shoes to fill.  My ego swelled to say the least.  And thus, nervously, I ventured onward alone to finish up my little owl (taking to heart Allison's final comments on putting these together - thanks for the tips!).

I started by attaching the belly fabric with a zig zag stitch around the edges.  Next I opted to skip the fabric centers for the eyes and instead used buttons.  I hand sewed the buttons and felt circles in place:

I thought about hand stitching the beak, but quickly changed my mind.  I followed the general outline of the triangle, guiding it under the machine foot just inside the edges.  I didn't like the look after once around so I stitched it a second time intentionally staying close the first set of stitches, but not following them perfectly.  I wanted a bit of a rough look and it worked well as the edges gently frayed a bit during the "laps" under the machine foot.

With the front features sewn on, I pinned my two fabrics together with the printed sides facing in.  I machine stitched almost all the way around leaving a small hole to flip it right side out and add the rice.

I used my pinking scissors to trim the fabric close to the stitching.  Flipped it right side out.  Filled about half way with rice and then hand stitched the opening to close it up. After it was done, I gave it over to Dylan for an inspection:

He seemed to approve and has toted it around a bit.  Thankfully, we haven't needed it for it's official "boo boo" duties yet.

And here is my completed little owl: