Nursery Owl Mobile Sewing Pattern

I feel so honored to be interviewed and featured in one of Malaysia’s leading English Daily, The Star, at the Craftypedia column. We had a long interview, head over to read more on what they had to say about me (click here) or get today’s copy from the newsstand. I am the cover story of The Star2 with a 2 full-page story and 2 half-page tutorials on this owl mobile!!!

I made this nursery owl mobile, “Forest of Owls”,  to share with the readers and I am so happy that the columnist, Lee Mei Li, allowed me to share it here with you all. As many of you may have known that I just moved into my new home and I still have plenty to work on for the home decor. These 2 sets of nursery owl mobiles (a pink and a blue) came in time for the kids’ rooms, one for my daughter and one for my son. I am glad that they love it dangling from their ceiling, watching them swing under a dim nightlight and to fall asleep.

The original plan was to design a similar owl from the owl key chain holder that my sister and I did a few years ago. My friend told me, why not split the head and body and make them swing freely when the mobile moves. Good idea! So, I picked up my paper and pencil, sketched out a new owl and started working on it… Later, I added more owls, a tree and some hearts to complete the whole nursery owl mobile.

Hope you love it and wish to see you start sewing it too, be it for your kids or as gifts for friend’s baby.

Nursery Owl Mobile

Sewing Pattern: Download the owl mobile pattern template. Save the pdf document, open in acrobat reader to print it out.

Sewing experience: Intermediate, with blanket stitch knowledge
Time needed: 20 – 30 minutes to make 1 owl or tree
Dimension: owl – 3” W x 3 ½” H, tree – 4″ W x 5″ H

Tools and Supplies:
1. Felt – pink, grey, white, red, green, brown
2. Embroidery floss – pink, grey, white, red and black
3. Fancy Button – 2
4. Cord / cotton twin
5. Ric Rac (mini) ribbon trim
6. Doll poly-stuffing
7. Embroidery needle or tapestry needle #24
8. Scissors
9. Owl, tree and heart templates
10. Paper or cardstock
11. Ball pen
12. Toiler’s pins

Tip: In order for the cord to stay securely, make a knot and insert into the owl, stitch on it while you do the blanket stitch.

OWL

Download and print the pattern template on a paper or cardstock, cut templates out and trace them on the felt with a ball pen according to the color shown on the picture.

Cut felt by following the inside of the traced lines so that no ugly ink is shown on the cut out felt.

Layer the white felt eye above one of the pink face pieces, blanket stitch to secure in place.
Position three strips of ricrac ribbon trim onto a grey body piece and sew with a backstitch.

Center the nose between the eyes and backstitch it in place.
Sew on the fancy buttons for eyes.

Experiment with different expressions. Here are the 4 different faces/expression that you can give to the owl.

Align the front and back felt pieces of the head and body. Position the pink wings on top of the front body piece. Pin in place.

Sew the front and back body pieces together with a blanket stitch, starting from the bottom of the left wing. Stop right before the top-center of the body. Sandwich a long length of cotton twine (with a knotted end) between the felt pieces. Continue blanket stitching across the edges of the body until you reach the bottom of the right wing.

Fill up the body with poly-stuffing and finish stitching up the piece.

You can also try a different design for the body – here are three, for starters.

Hold the head felt piece to the body and sandwich the cord in between, letting it run out at the top-center of the head. Start blanket stitching from the bottom of the head and continue on until you reach the left ear.

Stuff the head and finish stitching up the piece. If needed, use a ball pen to push the poly-stuffing into the head.

The completed owl mobile. Sew another few of them with different expression and body as shown above.

TREE

Cut felt on the tree template, tree/crown, trunk, and small hearts.

Arrange the hearts on the crown, blanket stitches them in place.

Layer half of the trunk on the crown, blanket stitch the top portion of the trunk to the crown.
Remark: this is an accurate method of attaching the trunk to the crown, though a little troublesome. You can always stitch both trunks to the crowns respectively and sew both pieces together.

Place another piece of trunk underneath, blanket stitch both trunks together on the bottom half.

Turn over, place the second piece of the crown and sew the trunk to it.

Stuff the trunk with poly-stuffing. You have to do it now and not after you have sewn up the tree. Use a pen to push the poly-stuffing in. Massage the trunk to even out the poly-stuffing if necessary.

Blanket stitch the crown, insert a knotted cord at the center of the tree. Stop when you are about 1 1/2″, stuff poly-stuffing into the crown, add a little to the trunk that you stuffed just now so that the stuffing is even.

Finish stitching up the piece.

Make more owls, top off with some hearts and the tree, and have them dangle from a stick or an embroidery hoop.

The embroidery hoop version with blue owls, this is for my 5-year-old son.