Three Very Different Owl Cards

As I have mentioned before a lot of people I know love owls and I am always on the look out for owl designs. I like to use different styles in my cards to reflect the recipient. Last year I made three very different owl cards.

The first was a lovely blackwork owl, I love the simple effectiveness of blackwork. It was a really easy design to follow. I used this kit from x-calibre designs. It only has 3 basic fill designs which prevents it from being overcrowded and fussy. The shape is lovely and makes the design quite cute. I would highly recommend this design for a beginner. I backed it on card with no other embellishments as I felt this allowed the design to be shown off.

X-calibre Designs Blackwork Owl

The second card design came as part of the free gift with The World of Cross Stitch magazine issue 216. There was a small booklet of 'luxury designs' and two medeira threads. The design was really clever as it used different thread thickness to create the shading. At first glance you assume that they use 4 threads as opposed to one strand and two strands of the two colours they give you. They also use stitch free areas well to include white in the design. I chose to sew on evenweave as I feel it gives a better finish. Once again I kept things simple when making the card up and just used an aperture card. It is a lovely design although it did take quite a bit of stitching as there is a lot of solid colour. They are all full stitches with no fractional stitches and the backstitch is only used for the tummy. The simplicity of the design and pattern combined with few colour changes make it another pattern that would be good for somebody starting out.

The World of Cross Stitch - Issue 216  - Pink and Turquoise Owl

My third owl card was made with felt and I found the pattern on a great site full of ideas and felt birds. This design was incredibly simple and took even less work than my Felt Triceretops. The feathers are only attached at the tops which gives good texture and doesn't take a lot of sewing. I opted for button eyes and I felt the shine on the buttons was nice as it made me think of seeing the flash of an owls eyes at night. The tutorial is really helpful and the pattern pieces are all there to download. The feathers were attached with a simple slip stitch in the co-ordinating colour, the face was blanket stitched on and the beak was backstitched in brown thread. I wanted it to be quite bold and used the burgundy to lift the grey and brown. I loved the co-ordination with the burgundy aperture card. 

Felt Owl using Downeast Thunder Farm Pattern