Toy Society Christmas Drop: the Montreal Owls

This morning was absolutely freezing outside, but I convinced my girls to put on an extra layer and accompany me on my super-stealth mission of dropping my 4 owls. They were having a very hard time understanding the concept, peppering me incessently on the drive there with questions like:

• Why are we giving them away?

• Who's going to find them?

• What if nobody finds them?

• Do we have to dig them into the snow?

• Will they be cold?

• Why are we doing this?

• Can we keep them?

• Why mommy, I don't understand!

But once we got to Place Royale in Old Montreal and I told them that we were now super spies and had to make sure nobody caught us, they were very much into it!

Drop 1 was in fact the first owl I made, with it's little scarf made from the belt of a sweater that inadvertently felted in the wash (aka shrunk) We picked a little lit tree near the museum entrance and hung him in the branches.

 

the second drop was actually Owl #3, which we hung on the other side of the staircase, on the fire hydrant. Even in the worst snow conditions, the hydrants are always shoveled and the red really stands out against the snow. I played with taking pics of hydrants last year in my photoclass and this particular one always stands out to me because it's sort of in the middle of the sidewalk and I'm always wondering how many people fall over it.

 

 

The 3rd drop was on the side of the building, the street people would walk by when going from the one museum to the other. We tied him up on a pole and he started flapping about. I double checked to make sure he was secured and we got out of there before we were spotted!

 

 

Finally, for our last drop, we actually left Place Royale just a little bit and crossed the street to leave our last little bird in the phone booth.

  

 

 

Dumpling was absolutely frozen by then, but Beach Ball was still having a ball, this having been one of her two drops.

The pattern I used can be found here. But I didn't even bother printing it, I just opened it and enlarged it on my screen, then totally eyeballed it. I did add a base to mine rather than tighten the bottom, and as I made more, I made the shape more and more elongated, which gave me much nicer long beaks on the thick felted wool.

Comments

[Katie J]

Lovely. What lucky ducks to receive such cute owls!

[Juddie]

I've never seen these owls done in felted wool before - they look so cozy and cuddly! I'm sure they will be greatly adored in their new homes :-)

[A]

Aha! So i should've read your blog before emailing you - you didn't have to print the directions out - but you know i am such a total amateur...I will try again. Your girls look adorable (one looks a bit frozen, but delicious none the less)

[leah]

Hey. Long ago I bought a monkey bag from you which I gave to a good friend who loves it! Would you consider making and selling an owl? They're adorable and I wish I lived in canada to have gotten one!
leah

[Susan]

Were these fellows ever found?