Whoo's the Cutest Halloween Owl?

After much debate - I decided to buy my son's costume this year (Luigi from Target) and make my daughter's.  I loved the Pottery Barn Kids' owl costume last year, but it was no longer available.   I found a number of great inspirations on Pinterest and went from there.

It really is a combination of many inspiration pieces.   For the base of the costume, I used a plain long sleeve pink t-shirt. To that I added pink and white felt feathers. The inspiration for the shirt came from the infamous Martha and her uber-adorable fledgling owl.

The feathers on mine are pink and white felt. I used AlphaMom's pattern for these. She did hers with an assortment of fabrics, which I also liked.

I did make the top few rows have smaller feathers so that I could fit a fair number around the top. And, yes, I did sew all of mine on to the shirt. My girl is rough on clothes and I knew if one of them bothered her, they would all be pulled off if I just used glue.

I also really liked Christine's pattern for feathers and a mask at Pure Joy Events.  The hoodie she used as her base is awesome, too, but I didn't have an extra on-hand that I wanted to sacrifice for the costume.   I debated on putting the white just long the center, as well, but ended up alternating my rows.   I also used part of her mask template for the face.

Since I was making this for my very precocious three year old, I decided against using a mask. I figured there was no way she'd leave it on.  I debated making a hat and loved some of the crochet patterns on found on Etsy, but again, I wasn't sure she'd leave it one. So - in the end - I went with a hooded cape.


I took the greatest inspiration from LivyLooWho

and some from Erica at B is for Boy:

In particular, I loved how she topstitched to create a wing effect on the cape.

She's done some other great versions, too, including a bat and some super-cool Angry Birds!

Now, let me just say, I'm not an expert seamstress by any stretch of the imagination! I did, though, manage to scratch out my own pattern for the cape and hood. I used a few measurements and drew the cape on freezer paper - folding it over to get the mirror image for the other half. For the hood, I used a hooded sweatshirt and traced the shape. I used a 1/2" seam allowance on all of it. It isn't perfect, but for a first attempt - I'm pretty pleased.  Most importantly - so is my daughter. That is - as long as she's allowed to play with her kitten while wearing it!

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