Owl Towels

Have you ever watched DIY Dish? It's great! The girls are sweet and so creative. Yay for local talent!

This week they had their first episode of their second season and the project was a cute owl pin cushion.  As you know, I already have a really cute pin cushion. What I need is more tea towels.

With a teeny bit of modification, I was able to use their darling pattern as an applique and now our tea towels make us giggle.

My favorite part:

I followed the pattern to cut the body as it makes two but instead of sewing them together I used one piece for each owl. Then I doubled the wings, face and legs.

For the features, I didn't use felt as these will be getting hard wear and lots of trips through the wash. Instead I used two pieces of white fabric per eye and it was thick enough to block out the stripes underneath and made the fraying all the better. Don't be afraid to substitute better suited materials to your projects and be sure to use what you have. In my case, I didn't have any orange for the beak but I did have flames. By fussy cutting I was able to come up with a perfectly adequate beak color. The black in the eyes came from a birds belly on a large pattern. No one will ever know and you'll spare yourself a trip to the store.

Just a tip, I know you're not as dumb as I am, but remember your legs need to be double thickness so they can be stuffed. I accidentally made them single-ply... twice. Oops. This was the first time I'd tried paper piecing (the sew and tear quilting technique, not paper crafting) and it's AWESOME. Very satisfying with all the rip and reveal excitement.

Here's one last look at my love birds:

I'd categorize this project as intermediate or motivated beginner. Five stars for design and clear instructions.

P.S. In case you're wondering, no, I didn't have a lobotomy over night. Yes, these are "cute" but they are also very funny. And I'm all about the funny. It's not like I appliqued kittens... *grin*