Took a while to fig­ure this one out. I ini­tial­ly just want­ed to make a flat owl shape, but thought it would be nice to give it some tex­ture. I tried incor­po­rat­ing the v‑stitch but it did­n’t look quite right… so I thought I’d try the loop stitch again and I think it looks rather fluffy and cute! It looks like the loop stitch is becom­ing one of my favourites (I’ll have to show you a larg­er scale project that I just fin­ished, involv­ing hun­dreds of loop stitch­es). Hope you like it as much as I do!

By the way, I found a slight­ly dif­fer­ent way of mak­ing the loop stitch on We are Knit­ters, which seems a bit more secure. The video tuto­r­i­al can be viewed here (nice music too!).

So! The pattern!

I used:

Worsted weight yarn in 2 shades of yel­low and blue

3.5 mm hook

Nee­dles for sewing and embroidering

Blue and orange thread for embroi­der­ing beak and eyes

A bit of white felt for eyes

Two black round beads for eyes and black thread for sewing on eyes

Body front:

Notes: it’s worked from top to bot­tom to accom­mo­date the direc­tion of the loops, then reat­tach yarn to cro­chet the head. For the 2 dif­fer­ent shades in the body, MC is main colour and CC is con­trast­ing colour. Car­ry the colour that is not in use up the rows when switch­ing colours.

With MC, ch 8

Row 1: sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in each ch across, turn.

Row 2: ch 1 (turn­ing ch 1 does not count as a st), lp st (loop stitch) in each sc across, turn.

Row 3: change to CC, ch 1, 2 sc in first st, sc in each st across until sec­ond last st, 2 sc in last sc, turn.

Row 4: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 5: change to MC, ch 1, 1 sc in each st across, turn.

Row 6: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 7: change to CC, ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 st, 1 sc in each st across until last 2 st, 2 sc tog over next 2 st, turn.

Row 8: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 9: change to MC, ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 sc, 1 sc in each st across until last 2 st, 2 sc tog over next 2 sc, turn.

Row 10: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, fas­ten off.

Now we make the head.

With MC and wrong side fac­ing you, attach yarn to the first row of body.

Row 1: ch 1, 1 sc in each st across, turn.

Row 2: ch 2, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, 1 sc in each of the next 3 sc across, 3 sc in next sc, 1 sc in each of the next 3 sc across, ch 2, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in the bot­tom of last sc just made (i.e. in the first sc of pre­vi­ous row), fas­ten off.

Back:

Note: back is worked from bot­tom to top in one piece and with MC only.

ch 7

Row 1: ch 1, 1 sc in each ch across, turn.

Row 2: ch 1, 2 sc in first sc, 1 sc in each sc across until sec­ond last sc, 2 sc in last sc, turn.

Row 3: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, turn.

Row 4: Repeat row 2.

Row 5–7: Repeat row 3 (i.e. work even).

Row 8: ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 sc, 1 sc in each sc across until last 2 sc, 2 sc tog over last 2 sc, turn.

Row 9: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, turn.

Row 10: work even.

Row 11–12: Repeat rows 1–2 of head. Fas­ten off, leave long tail for sewing.

Wings (make 2):

Leave 3–4 inch­es of tail for sewing, ch 4

Row 1: 2 dc in 4th ch from hook, turn.

Row 2: ch 3 (turn­ing ch 3 counts as a stitch), 2 dc in next dc, dc in top of begin­ning ch 3, turn.

Row 3: ch 3, 3 dc tog over next 2 dc and top of turn­ing ch 3. Fas­ten off, leave 3–4″ of tail for sewing.

Assem­bly:

Cut 2 cir­cles for eyes. I cut mine about 1/2″ wide, but you can make them small­er or larg­er if you like. Owl plush­es with giant eyes are very cool-look­ing too.

Sew eyes on the head of owl with blue embroi­der thread, if you like that look.

Embroi­der beak.

Sew on black beads to com­plete eyes.

Sew front and back togeth­er. I made two small loops at each ear while sewing but that’s option­al. If you’re mak­ing an orna­ment you may also want to make a loop with a rib­bon and sand­wich it between the front and back and sew it all together.

Attach the wings by tying the yarn tail at the top of wings to the top cor­ners of the first row of loop stitch, and the bot­tom of the wing to the bot­tom cor­ners of the last row of body. This sounds more com­pli­cat­ed than it is — you will eas­i­ly get it by look­ing at the picture :)

And we’re done!

Here’s the owl and me with an owl shirt on :D

I love how fluffy he is :D

Would be fun to make it with dif­fer­ent colour com­bi­na­tions. And if I were to make anoth­er, I would prob­a­bly try to make the loops a bit smaller.

It would be so excit­ing to see the dif­fer­ent owls every­one makes!

Until next time — hap­py crafting!