I've been missing barn owls- fewer evening activities running over the last couple of years have meant less driving in the dark, the best time for seeing them here. So, I've made this bunch of little barns owls as tree decorations for this winter.
I've knitted them in Jamieson's Spindrift Shetland wool in shades 'Natural White' and 'Scotch Broom', the latter a deep, old gold flecked with browns, so a good match for the barn owl subspecies round here. I knit these as simple, Fair Isle rectangles with knitted on wings. I then folded, sewed and wet felted them into a more barn owly shape, clamping the tails into shape with a big bulldog clip as they dried. I've shamelessly cutified them up a bit, embroidering big eyes in stranded cotton and overstuffing them.
Most have gone out with Christmas parcels to family and friends but I've kept one for us, which is sitting on my worktable, amid a sea of wool. I've hung it in a glass dome with fairy lights, where it’s unsettlingly reminiscent of Victorian taxidermic cases but, on the plus side, it's making a twinkly pool of golden light on this dark, damp day, while Storm Barra blows through.
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