FO: Tower of Owls

I couldn't just give my nephew one owl for his birthday, of course, right? lol. He wanted owls of all colors. While that's a fine idea, I just didn't have enough time to make multiple large owls. Thankfully, Stacey Trock has designed a pattern for just such situations ...

I made 3 tiny owls instead! I used the Nel the Tiny Owl pattern from Fresh Stitches. I've had this pattern for over a year and I never made it up before! What a crime.

So, all the owls are made with Vanna's Choice for their white areas and the Mustard color for their beaks and feet. This purple guy has I Love This Yarn in Grape for the main color and Vanna's Choice in Wild Berry for the eye circles. I bought the wild berry yarn because I loved the color over a year ago (again - it's a theme) and I've never managed to use it until now. This was the first owl I made.

I made the next two owls simultaneously. The green body color is I Love This Yarn in Christmas Green and the eye circles are Red Heart Super Saver in Spring Green. It's funny - I have I Love This Yarn in several colors, but I very rarely use them on anything. After using the green and purple for these owls, I want to use it more often - this stuff is so soft! It was really nice to work with.

This final guy has a mystery acrylic yarn for the orange body (I got it at a thrift store - full skein, no label) and the yellow is Red Heart Super Saver (also thrifted, so I'm not sure of the color name). All of the owls have 12 mm eyes which I found surprising. I figured they would use smaller eyes since they are smaller owls, but the 12 mm really does look best.

The only difference between the larger owl and this little guy is that it doesn't have a tail. I kind of miss the tail! They're still cute without one, but I think I may come up with some little nub next time.

So there's the little owls. I had fun positioning them for these photos :) I love the top picture - I stuck a chopstick through them all to get them to balance on top of each other like that.

Just like with Red Bee, Luke loved his little owls. This picture was taken just as he opened the present. I couldn't resist posting this shot even though my sister was talking just behind him and was captured making a very unfortunate face (sorry, Kelly). So pardon my fancy editing, lol.

Isn't he just the cutest 3 year old?! He had a Curious George themed birthday party, and we had a banana hunt and pin the yellow hat on George and we made pinwheels. Good times were had by all.

So now Luke has a whole multi-colored owl family :) They all sleep in his bed with him every night, and I'm told that he enjoys arranging them just so. I'm really happy with how they all turned out, but I'm mostly just happy that Luke likes them so much. Yay for owls!

Happy Valentine's Day! Meet Valentina (and My Hubby's Gift)!

I've had this little lady finished for over a week, but I wanted to save the reveal until today so we could with you all a Happy Valentine's Day!

This is Valentina :) Recently, Stacey at FreshStitches was selling Valentine Owl Kits, but since I already had the pattern I figured I would make my own. I already had the pattern (Nelson the Owl) and the yarns too, so this guy was completely made out of my stash.

Here's the back view.

I seriously love the tail on this pattern - it's so cute!

Since I was copying the owl from the kit, I went in search of a small heart I could make and the one from this pattern worked great :)

In other Valentine's Day news, due to our weird schedules my husband and I celebrated yesterday. I surprised him with these:

Take a closer look ...

They're made of bacon! I was inspired by Pinterest and sort of followed a tutorial I found there, but I Had to do a little improvising to make it actually work. They came out awesome and he really loved them, so it's a win win! I'll do a mini tutorial here soon on how I did it (and I didn't have to ruin any pans in the process).

We also went to one of my favorite restaurants last night for dinner. If you live in the Orlando area, check out Cypriana - seriously fantastic Greek food! I get to eat my leftovers for lunch today and I'm told I have a surprise arriving some time as well :)

I hope you all have a very Happy Valentine's Day :)