Spring has Sprung!

Aaron and I went for a walk today.  We couldn't pass up another one of these beautiful days without spending some time in the sunshine together.  It was a pretty short walk though, because I kept stopping to take pictures.  

This is what the woods around us looks like.  It's beautiful even in the winter.  I love the big rocks everywhere.  When we lived out in California (where the hubby's from), I missed these forests everyday. 

Aaron posed while I worked on the camera settings for him to take some pics of me.  Aaron has the opposite problem with pant buying from me.  His pants and long sleeved shirts tend to be too short.  He's a tall dude at six foot four.  

He took this photo.  Spring has sprung!  

I love to take close up pics of rocks.  I could fill a computer with just images of rocks.  

We parked right next to this horse farm.  I used to live two doors down from this place from thirteen to seventeen.  

So many flowers out right now!  I'm okay that our winter was light this year, because it was ridiculous the year before.    

I also worked on my owl patch today.  I had to remove the elbow patch from the one arm and reattach it, because I had let it slide off place while sewing it.  I'm kind of glad I did though cause I decided to add another layer of the body felt for some extra strength.  The placement seems to be much better now too.  I think starting on the bottom instead of the top helped too.  Well I want to get back to sewing those guys on.  I'll catch ya'll later, happy DIYing, chris!

Owlbow Patches

I've had these Owlbow Patches on my mind since the beginning of February.  I finally got them started today!  

I began by drawing out the template for the owls on card stock.  I drew the body, and then cut it out and kept tracing the body to draw the other parts in.  Then I cut out each piece, so that I would be able to trace the same template twice.  

Now I used card stock templates to trace the parts out on felt in different colors.  I used eight different colors.  I laid them all out as I went, to make sure they looked good.  To keep everything in place I used embroidery thread, before I started sewing though I used a little glue to help keep things from falling off track.  I sewed the small black circles to the large grey eye circles with green thread first.  Next I sewed on the nose with white thread to match the nose felt, and the same for the bottom belly piece.  

For the belly I started at the bottom, and only sewed a straight line across the top.  Except for the top belly felt I tried something more playful.  

I liked the look of the lighter thread on the top stomach piece, so I followed that trend on the wings.  I only sewed the inside, because the outside with be sewn when I sew the patch to my sweater.  

Once I was ready to attach the patch I put on the sweater I was attaching it too and used four pins to secure the patch in place.  

This is how much I was able to get sewn today.  I still have a lot to go!  I hope I'm able to finish this project over the weekend.  I need to go to bed though, because I have an early day tomorrow.  Happy DIYing, chris.

EDIT:  Just wanted to check in to show how the elbow patches turned out.