WHOOOO can make an Owl baby mobile? You can!

Guess what? It's a guest blog about a sewing project! This comes from my dear friend Andrea over at The Strategic Homemaker. Andrea and I met very soon after both of us moved to southwest Virginia - we moved from across the state line, whereas she and her husband moved from across the world after a year of teaching English in Asia! Our friendship has grown over such things as picking cherries and berries, cookbooks, being handy and thrifty around the house, becoming next door neighbors, and especially sewing! I'm excited that she's sharing her expertise here.
PS. She very politely refers to folks who are frightened of applique. That was me ... until she taught me how! Thanks, Strategic and Helpful Homemaker!

Several years ago, Mrs. Rhymes with Smile taught me how to sew. I have advanced beyond that first t-shirt quilt, so I am very excited to be guest posting here about a recent sewing project.

I had talked about making a sailboat baby mobile on my own blog here, but here is another idea, and, really, your options for baby mobiles are limited to your imagination.  

This sweet girl’s mama had planned her nursery and displayed this mood board on her family blog. 

Seeing the little owl pillow on the board, I was like, “Hey, an owl mobile would fit right in.” Owls may seem a bit on the creepy side, especially if you watch Youtube videos of owls spinning their heads more than 360 degrees, but this little girl’s room had a lot of Dr. Seuss books, so the owls fit right in with the various characters, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

I designed them to match the pillow. I drew a boxy rectangle pattern with a hint of ears on a piece of paper, and used this pattern to cut out ten fabric pieces to the same shape. Then I decorated five of these pieces with applique to look like owls. 

Some people I know are intimidated by applique. DO NOT BE! You just iron this stuff called Wonder under onto the wrong side of your fabric, and then you cut it into whatever shape you want, basically making your own iron-on stickers for fabric. I usually blanket stitch in a matching colored thread around the ironed-on fabric to give it a finished look, but some of the pieces I used for these owls were small, so I just used a straight stitch a couple of millimeters inside the edge of the fabric.  This ended up looking really good too.

Another reason I like applique is that is uses really small pieces of fabric, so I get to use my scraps, and I hardly ever need to buy any fabric.

Anyway, once you finish decorating the owl fronts, you place your two sides right sides together and sew around the edge, leaving a gap of a couple inches on the bottom. Turn the owls right side out through the gap. Stuff them, and hand stitch the gap closed. Then you knot some thin ribbon and hand stitch the knot to the top of your owl.  Now you can hang your mobile on whatever you want. I used an upside-down plant basket.

Here is the finished product!

I was hoping to have a picture of it hanging up in the baby’s room, but  alas, the family is moving to a new state in a month, and will save it to hang there. 

Let me know if you make one of these, or if you design your own baby mobile to make!