early bird/night owl reversible pillow for my Thing 2

At long last, this pillow has finally jumped out of my head and into real life. I've intended for a very long while to make my girls a fun accent pillows for their beds. They have repeatedly requested them.

I just didn't intend to make this one. I had decided to make a quick, simple animal pillow (think circle with ears) for Thing 2 since she's a bit younger, loves animals and would really dig that. And then the usual descent into madness:

Ooh, might as well make that reversible early bird/night owl pillow I sketched!

With woven applique! Felt applique! 3D elements! Hand embroidery! Trims! Poms!

And pockets! And removable accessories!

In fabulous perfect colors but all from the stash!

So after drafting/sweating/squinting/doubting/rethinking/redrafting (but having fun doing it in the weird way that we do) I'm really happy with the finished pillow! And I must say, Thing 2 freaked out over it in a very gratifying manner. She has been hanging around the craft studio daily. Standing at my shoulder, practically vibrating, saying 'Is it finished yet? Can I have it?'

The early bird gets the worm, of course. I guess the worm may not realize its precarious position, judging by its clueless little smile.

The night owl gets a mouse in a pocket NO too cluttered

mouse in its beak NO bit too gruesome

pocket watch! Of course. Look at that late hour. Tsk tsk, Night Owl.
(We are keeping the little green mouse to play with, though. He's cute.)

View from top of owl/bottom of bird showing both sides coming together. I thought about doing a gusset for the sides instead. Nah. It would be more trouble, plus might make the poms look weird.

Happy accident. The owl's eyebrows make nice bird feet. While I did design the pom plume on the bird to also make the owl's feet, I have to admit I didn't think about the bird feet until I started taking photos. Duh. On the next one I'll have to exaggerate it some to get it to work.

You can see the progression of the idea on these very professional and organized scraps of paper from the last two years (the ones I can find anyway). Cheese-shaped sticky notes – the choice of designers everywhere. There are two versions of on my computer too, the latest being the one I made. Now I don't have to worry: the pattern is digitized and backed up in triplicate.

I think Early Bird/Night Owl would make a nice pattern for the shop, so I'm adding it to my list. Or I might explore doing a Spoonflower pre-printed version? Something you could just cut out, add felt accents, sew and stuff? I've wanted to try Spoonflower for so long. I have some Twelve Days tea towels in progress for Spoonflower too. Oh, for more time in the day, people.

So next up is another fun project, a fur accent pillow for my Thing 1. She wants a bright, shaggy one with a stinkface. Giving me stinkfaces is her specialty, so she wanted the pillow to match. (To make a stinkface, stand in front of a mirror and bring your brows as far down over your eyes as you can while simultaneously frowning up into your nose. It's very attractive. Use them whenever your mother asks you to do something.)

We've ordered turquoise shag fur and I'm thinking through the best way to give the pillow a grumpy expression with sewn tucks. That's going to be a fun one too! Reversible! And with a happy expression on the other side, don't you think?