A week or two ago, I posted a picture on Pinterest (i.e. crafter's crack) of a cute owl purse that I found on Craftster.org. Shortly after posting, I received a comment from one Miss Carmyn Egge that she wanted one. I sort of shrugged it off, not thinking much of it at the time. Cue thrift store trip 2 days ago, while at the store, I begin texting with her, and she again mentions that she wants the purse and asks if I'll make it for her while I'm "finding myself" (i.e. being a bit of a lazy bum and not working!). Since I was already at the store, I agreed and headed for the men's suits.

I found exactly 2 suit coats among probably 200 that were the pattern I wanted, and only one that was the color I was envisioning. So, I bought it, even though it wasn't quite as big as I was wanting (doesn't hurt to have some extra fabric in case you screw up a cut here or there). So, I drew up a pattern with some freezer paper-- if you sew, I highly recommend using freezer paper for patterns, as it is usually quite wide, it is relatively see through, nice and sturdy, and you can iron it right on to your fabric and cut around so no need for pins!

Of course, right as I was getting ready to prep my cut out pieces, my iron decided to stop working, so my sewing was delayed a day. Yesterday I got a new iron, sewed the lining, and began work on the appliqued front. Fortunately, I had all the other materials laying around... lots of felt from some misguided foray into stuffed animal making, tons of embroidery thread from various projects (some dating back to when I was a teenager and decided making friendship bracelets was cool), iron-on stabilizer (from who knows what), and lining fabric (I have kind of an embarrassing habit of buying fabric, whether I need it or not, and also of buying too much.)

Well, the results are quite satisfying, as you can see:

He's very adorable, if you ask me, and the liner fabric worked very well, and was totally "woodland" themed:

Mushrooms! I've already made a shopping bag and an apron out of this fabric, so it's gotten some use! And, it inspired the little applique on the back. I felt like the back of the owlie was a little boring with just the tweed, so I made a little pretty for it:

Another Mushroom! This bag was so fun to make. Now, it's off to the post office to mail to Miss Carmyn!