Small Owls (cross-stitch)

My mother likes owls, I like owls too.  So my stitching owls is not surprising.

I started with little owls from a pair of mini patterns I spotted in a sale basket in a small shop, I forget exactly where.

The material is not purpose made for cross stitch, it is from a  linen skirt I had. Worn only once or twice and kept at the back of the wardrobe I remembered it after buying the pattern. It had a high to the inch thread count and I stitched the owls over two.

Barn owl in flight

For the Barn owls, each owl, in flight and resting was stitched on a separate bit of material as were the words barn and owls.

Perched Barn Owl

 As that meant very thin margins for framing, and I had previous experience of a framer in a shop giving me grief about the small margin of material round a design, and this had even less, so I cut the mount myself with a small mount board cutter and did it myself.



Whilst the end result leans more to the unique of my motto than the perfect I am still rather pleased with my arches.  My first go at cutting a curve.

Framed Barn Owl

Perhaps I should mention dimensions at this point. The aperture size for the full frame is 10cm wide and a little over 14cm high.  The owl in flight is 5cm wide and a little over 5.5cm in height.  The Perched owl is 2.5 wide and 5cm in height.  It was, when I made it intended for my mothers office.  She kept it at home as being a touch to big for her desk.

So I did say there were two patterns the second had a smaller "in flight" bird so back to the skirt and office picture number two.  This time Tawny Owls.  The in flight bird measures 6cm across and 3.5 down, the perched version is 3.5 across and 5.5 down, so I could get them in a frame with an aperture of 11 by 7.5 cm.  No fancy arches this time and still a bit wobbly on the cutting but it went to work and squeezed its way onto her desk.

It came home when she retired and joined the Barn Owls.

Tawny Owl in flight

I must admit that of the two I prefer the framing on the Barn Owl, but I like the perched Tawny Owl, there is something engaging about the eyes.

Perched Tawny Owl

Framed Tawny Owls