What a hoot!

I decided on the owl costume and it was a big hit. Looking forward to wearing it when handing out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. I can say, "Whooooooooooooooooo are you?"

The costume was pretty easy to make. I purchased one black long sleeve t-shirt from Target and four fat quarters for the feather fabric. It only took about an hour to cut out the feathers, using the template from Alphamom's post. I paired the top with a black with white stripes skirt that I picked up at the resale shop.

Starting at the bottom of the shirt, the feathers were pinned and sewn on in straight lines. It really didn't matter if a perfect line was made. I'm sure real owl feathers aren't even. Once at the top, I attached the final feathers in a curve to match the collar (a bit above the collar's edge) and then tried the shirt on to see where I need to attach any extra feathers. (I only had to attach a matching white feather on each shoulder.)

The eye mask is also from Alphamom's blog. I printed it out in color (from Alphamom's PDF file), laminated it with sticky laminate (the peel-off kind one buys at office supply stores), and then scotch taped the eyes to a pair of sunglasses. (The center of the eyes were cut out after lamination.) I wasn't able to wear the glasses all night (it was difficult to see) but on top of my head, the eye mask was still visible and cute.

The finished product was a big hit and I received many compliments - mostly from hunters who commissioned me to sew ghillie suits - one being my husband. Looks like I'll be busy this fall :)