Hello! Today I'll show you how I made the owl appliqué for my sweet pouch swap pouch.

I haven't done a tutorial for making the actual pouch because I always use Flossie Teacakes' lined zipper pouch tutorial, it's perfect and I couldn't improve on it!

So first you need to download your templates for the owl from the Sew Magazine templates directory here.

I used their templates, but completely ignored their instructions because I thought they were silly.

Your owl and wings and bits will all come out of your scraps bin so that's a bonus! Cut out one owl body, 4 wings, and 1 nose. I cut the nose from felt.   I also used some eyelet trim I had for his belly and two buttons for eyes. I also chose to interface my owl's body to make it a bit easier to stitch onto the pouch.


When you cut out his wings make sure to cut about 1/4" larger than the template. The rest I cut as they were.

Putting right sides together, sew two wing pieces together, twice with a 1/4" seam allowance. To make two wings. Obviously! Don't forget to leave a turning gap. I've marked my turning gap with stars below.



Trim your corners really close and I like to pink the rounded edges so that I don't accidentally clip through the seam. For a great tip on how to trim corners check out Toni's blog post.


Turn these right way out and encourage the corners to sit out sharp and the curves to be curvy. Press them well, turning under the turning gap. As you can see, I didn't quite get as far as turning under my gap! The turning gap will be on the outside of the owl.

Put these to one side and grab your owl's body and whatever trim you want to use for his feathers. In the past I've used a few rows of ric rac or some lace.


Starting at the bottom, sew each line of trim. Because this had a raw edge, I layered my trim up, over the previous one and turned the edge on the top row.


Continue all the way up to just below the narrowest part of your owl's head. I used my wings to measure how far I wanted the lace to go up to, just laying them on top every now and then to decide.


Once you're finished, trim the excess from the sides. You might find it easier to do this from the back so you can follow the curve of your owl's body.

Next I hand stitched the owl's beak in the centre, overlapping his 'feathers' using a matching thread. Then I placed my wings on where I wanted them.


Next I cut a piece of linen 8" square, added some fusible fleece on the back,  and pinned my owl onto it. I positioned him in the centre horizontally, but a bit lower than the centre vertically. I.e. I put him nearer the bottom, but in the middle.


To determine my stitch width and length I played around on some scrap cotton until I was happy, I settled with a width of 3.5mm and 0.7mm length.


Starting at the bottom of my owl, I made sure the centre of my presser foot was exactly on the edge of my owl to ensure that half my stitches would be on the owl, and half on the backing fabric.


I stitched slowly around the whole owl, making sure to take care where the wings start and end.


All Mr Owl's missing are his eyes and I managed to find these very owl eye looking buttons in my stash.


To make up my pouch I cut a second 8" square linen piece, and added fusible fleece and then two pale pink lining pieces the same size. I used a 10" zip and cut it down to size once I'd sewn the front, back and lining to it.

To make the rest of the pouch I used Flossie Teacakes' zippered pouch tutorial which I think is second to none! You could also use this method to add your owl to anything you wish though.

Just think of all the owls you can add to various things!!