crochet owl pillow: the tutorial

This is a project that was supposed to have been finished a long time ago, since it was intended as an Easter present for my daughter. But it was not meant to be. I ended up buying her a book instead and told her she would have her owl pillow as soon as possible.

Anyway, I managed to finish this little guy yesterday morning and I'm finally ready to share the tutorial. So here is the crochet owl pillow!

Want to make one? It's easy, no special crochet skills required and, if you're not me and don't have a million other things to do, you'll be able to put it together pretty quickly.

Here's the how-to. You'll need a pillow (rectangular shape works better in my opinion). I did not measure mine and I do not have it with me as I'm writing this, but if I had to guess I would say it's about 40 x 20 centimeters.

Other than that, three different colors of yarn (I used 100% cotton for this owl, but I'm making another - if my daughter has one, my son wants one too - with a totally different yarn, so choose what you feel comfortable with) and two buttons for the eyes.

Alternating the colors, crochet two rectangles long and wide enough to cover your pillow (sorry, some of the pictures were taken at night, so they're not as clear as the others).

Join the two rectangles together with a single stitch all around, keeping the pillow in between.

Now you have a crochet covered pillow. Set it aside for a while and crochet the eyes: two circles of the darkest shade of yarn you are using (in my case it was the grey) and two smaller ones in a contrasting color.

I made the larger circles with three rows of double crochet and one row of single crochet, and the smaller circles with two rows of double crochet and one row of single crochet. Depending on the actual size of your pillow, you may need to adjust measurements.

The idea is to have the eyes looking like this when you stack all layers (including the buttons):

Sew the buttons onto the smaller circle first, and then sew the smaller circle onto the larger one. When this is done, place the eyes where you want them on your pillow and sew them in place too.

Then, you'll need to crochet two additional circles for the wings (you can make them half circles but I think with a full circle you'll get more of a 3D effect) and a square for the beak.

The circles are made the same way as the ones for the eyes, with just one additional row of double crochet. To sew the wings, fold the circles in half and sew then (on the fold) to the sides of the pillow (sorry, I was frantically trying to get it finished at this stage, so I forgot to take pictures). I didn't sew the circles completely shut, so there is a sort of a small pocket in the wings (it's like you can hold hands with the owl...):

All that it's left at this point is the beak. Fold the crochet square in half, not quite aligning the edges (so that the top half is slightly smaller than the bottom one), and sew it in place onto the pillow. Again, if you don't sew the top half completely, your owl will be able to open its beak and hoot around (or maybe not):

And your owl is done!

Enjoy,