Tiny Tuesday: Owl Tutorial

Yes, this wise yet ferocious owl looks intimidating despite being only 5 inches square unfinished. However, if you work on it section by section, you may be amazed how easy it is to work with small pieces. And after all, you are participating in a Tiny Tuesday project hosted by the wonderful Angela at SoScrappy, home of Tiny Tuesday AND the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

First, check out your scraps for owl wings, owl head fabric, owl body and owl feet. You will also want a bit of beak and some background fabric. And yes, owl eyes. Rather than cut all the pieces ahead of time, we'll move through each section. That said, I would start with three 1X8 inch strips of background fabric.

Let's start out nice and easy. You will need two 1 inch squares of beak fabric and two 1 X 1.75 inch rectangles of owl head fabric. The layout shows that we're going to add a flip triangle to the upper corner.

Place the beak squares face down on the owl head rectangles and sew a diagonal across each as shown.

Press back the triangle...finger pressing works best for these tiny pieces. If the sewing gets a bit wonky, that's okay, because you are going to fold back the fabric as if you had sewn it perfectly. Then cut away the excess from behind. (Do not cut first and then fold back because you will have lost your alignment.)

And while we're here, let's sew the beaks together.

Now the feet will be really easy. Take two 1 inch squares of background fabric and put flip triangles on either side of a 1 by 3 inch owl feet fabric.

For the owl breast, add 2 one inch squares of background fabric as flip triangles to the bottom corners of a 2.25 by 3 inch rectangle of owl breast fabric.

And now you can sew beak to body to feet.

Now let's help the owl fly by giving him/her some wings. For this you will want two 1.5 by 2.75 inch rectangles of wing fabric. You will add four flip triangles to each wing: three of background fabric and one of "owl head" fabric. This is the same fabric you used when making the beak.

Please note that the "owl head" flip triangle is added to the top right of one wing and the top left of the other wing.

Here are the wings with the flip triangles attached.

Now you will attach a 1 by 1.5 inch rectangle to the bottom of each wing. You don't really have to cut these separately...just use the one inch strips of background fabric that you started with.

Now you have the wing sections.

Now you have two wings and an owl body. Please attach.

Voila! Time to make an owl head.

Just like everything else, the owl eyes are made by attaching a one inch square flip triangle to the corner of a 1.75 square of owl eye fabric.

But let's talk about owl eyes. Here, I've taken a 1.75 inch square with a 1.25 inch square cut out of the center. This helps audition fabric for owl eyes. When using polka dot fabrics, remember that you can cut them off center to make the owl look right, left, up, down or cross eyed.

And don't forget, you can always use a solid fabric and draw an eye with a permanent marker.

So where did we leave off? Flip triangles of owl head fabric were sewn to each corner of the eyeball fabric. Now sew the eyes together in the middle. Then sew one inch strips of owl head fabric to each side and the top. (You can cut two 1 by 1.75 inch strips for the sides, and a 1 by 4 inch strip for the top.)

Next, add two 1 inch squares of background fabric as flip triangles to the top corners of the owl head.

Almost there!

Add one inch strips of background fabric to each side of the owl head.

Now sew the head to the body.

Knock Knock! Hoot's There?