A new OWL project!

You may or may not know how much I love owls and, I have really been enjoying the fact that owls have become so popular.  I have made quite a number in a variety of different ways, crocheted, embroidered, sewn and appliqued.

There are hundreds of owl projects on Pinterest and on various blogs and, seeing them from time to time has made me start feeling the need to make a new owl project.

This week I wanted to make a gift for a friend's little girl and I thought that perhaps I could combine the two ideas.  I have seen some very sweet little owl bags made and I thought that I could make one of my own, so I did. 

I tried a different construction to many of the bags I have made in the past. For this bag, I made a template shape for the bag front and back as well as for the applique pieces for the owl face. I drew round all the shapes onto fusible web, fused them onto the wrong side of their appropriate pieces of fabric and then cut them out (including the bag front/back and the lining front/back.)  I peeled off the backing paper from the fusible web and fused the bag front/ back pieces onto some batting.  I peeled off the backing paper from all the owl face shapes, positioned them where I wanted them on the front of the bag and, fused them into place.  I finished off the edge of all the applique pieces with a machined zig-zag stitch.

Then I trimmed up the batting to match the shape of the front and back pieces of the bag. Next, I peeled off the backing paper from the lining pieces and placed them on top of the batting side of the bag front and bag back and fused them into position.  (They were exactly the right size and shape.) I made some bias binding and I bound the top edge of the front/back bag pieces, trimming up any extra binding to match the side edges.  I placed the bag front and back pieces together right sides out, matching the raw edges and then bound the two sides together with another piece of bias binding.  I extended the binding at the top edge to make the handle and there you have it, one cute little owl bag!

I was pleased with how it all went together and I found that the stiffness of the fusible web I had used on the front and back of the bag gave it some extra strength so that it should keep its shape nicely. I added some buttons to finish off the eyes and a piece of ribbon as a sweet little label on the back.

Hope my friend's daughter will like it!