Handmade Holidays 2011: Felt & Fleece Pillows

Years ago I came across a random blog post about giving your children Christmas gifts. I tried googling it to find the post again because I never did bookmark it. Silly me. But I couldn't find it again. 2007 or 2008 is eons ago in internet time. In this post, a mom talked about the 5 gifts she gave her children each year: clothing, books, toys, art projects, and something handmade. She had a very nice reason for each...clothes to keep them warm, books to give them knowledge, toys to foster imaginative play, art to bring out their creative side, and something handmade to show how much they were loved. This post really struck me (obviously, since I remember it four years later) and I tend to follow a similar pattern with the gifts we give our children. In the past, I've knitted sweaters for their Build-a-Bears and scarves and mittens for their American Girl dolls. Also, knitted scarves and matching hats for the girls. This year, I wondered what I was going to make them until I came across these adorable owl pillows. The girls LOVE stuffed animals so I thought this would be perfect for them and I could customize each one in their favorite colors.

You MUST click over to that link and check out the fabulous owl birthday party on the Snowy Bliss blog. You can buy her owl pattern on Etsy for only $6 and it's definitely worth it. Though, I'm sure you could spend the time to try and draw your own pattern. For me $6 was totally worth saving the time. I'm making five of these pillows for many of the girls we give gifts too. And I made a matching ornament to go with each one. You can find the ornament tutorial here.
These are all five pillows cut out before any stitching:
Here are two of my finished owl pillows enjoying an unseasonably warm December day:
This one below is for my younger daughter. Her favorite colors are pink and purple.
And with the matching ornament:
This set I made for a friends' daughter for her birthday:
My happy girls on Christmas Eve morning:
I also have a son and even though I'm not sure he will be very into it (he's only 23 months old), I felt like I should make him something as well. So I turned the owl pattern into a monster!
And here is the little guy cut out, ready to be stitched:
My son wasn't super into his when he opened it, but my daughter liked his as well as hers.

For each pillow, I used fleece for the main body of the pillow and felt for the appliqued pieces. I picked fleece because I thought it would be softer and cuddlier than felt. :-)