Owls have been some of my favorite creatures since childhood: hearing their soft, haunting voices in the night woods from my bedroom; a rare ghosty glimpse in the trees or a flash of luminous eyes in the beam from the headlights on our country roads; my beloved worn paperback copy of Farley Mowat’s boyhood adventures with his unusual pets in Saskatoon. Later I was intrigued by their status in myth all over the world: birds of wisdom and prosperity, companions of goddesses, omens of death, divine messengers or demon spirits. And let’s own to it: a lot of them are cute. So it’s no surprise I fell for the tiny owls on Alexandra Rasmussen’s blog, Moonstitches, on my first visit. (I also fell for her beautiful quilts and photographs; she’s one of the craft bloggers whose posts I most look forward to nowadays.) I knew there were adorable sewn owls in my future.

I made this little guy last night when I realized I wasn’t going to finish the birthday present I’d started for Jen. He’s a placeholder until the real present is done. I stuffed him with wool and stiffened his bottom with a circle of cardboard from a priority mail envelope, which I figure is sort of a good joke for Harry Potter fans. And look how perfectly he nested overnight in my new 100% Philistine Made pin cushion:

I gave him to Jen at school to be her desk owl. Here he is on my desk:

… and outside at the bird bath:

(He didn’t go in, being so new and squeaky clean.)

Now I know why Alexandra says they come in swarms. I don’t know if I can resist making him a bunch of cousins. The literary collective noun for owls is a parliament.

Mr. G: Nice sweater in the tub, btw.  me likes!!

YT: It’s a skirt! 😀 But now I think we may have to take a picture with me
wearing it as a sweater. You didn’t notice its lack of sleeves?

Mr. G: … well…uhm…well…uhm.  You usually add the sleeves at the end and I thought you were perhaps pressing it out to take some photos before finishing it up.  ok ok… I didn’t look THAT closely… I just liked the texture/pattern and the ruffle at the bottom (shh..mum is the word about liking ruffle!)

YT: A gent is allowed to like a ruffle fluttering about his lady’s knees,
isn’t he? Hell, why else have we been sewing ruffles to our clothing lo
these many centuries?

Mr. G: it is still not MANLY to state that one likes ruffle.

YT: I have to warn you, it’s getting very tempting to share this dialogue in
a blog post.

Mr. G: can it be anonymous?

Nope – sorry, honey. I don’t think there’s any way to sell the readers on the notion that a random anonymous man happened by our bathtub and peeked in at the garment blocking there. I guess it could have been a plumber (lord knows we need one to look at our two leaky sinks), but he’d have to be a pretty forward plumber possessing intimate knowledge of knitterly habits, and I’m guessing there aren’t too many of those. But we can, finally, show some pictures of the Indigo Ripples skirt I’ve been picking away at all summer long.

Note its distinctive skirtiness. Les specs:

Indigo Ripples skirt, by Kat Coyle, Interweave Knits Spring 2007

Classic Elite Soft Linen, 6 skeins, Kentucky Blue

US #5 needles

Mods: I lowered the waistline, altered the gauge and CO number, and lengthened the stockinet portion for a measure of modesty. (I’m wearing it with a black skirt underneath, and it’s still a little sultry for a K-8 school workplace – I think this will have to be a date-night ensemble, so it’s a fine thing we already know Mr. G likes the ruffle!)

I also dispensed with the i-cord drawstring and sewed one from my fabric stash instead. Here’s a close-up of the lace portion: I love the optical effects of those shifting mirrored increases and decreases:

I don’t know how many knitted skirts I’ll be making; ultimately I have my doubts about their practicality. But I like this one, and I loved working with the Soft Linen yarn, a wool/alpaca/linen blend that should be perfect for autumn wear. I totally concur with Clara Parkes’s review of it, and I’ll be interested to see how well the fabric holds up to, well, nether wear.

Thanks to Mr. G for the pictures, which look a lot more va-va-voom than I was feeling: we’d just returned from a long weekend of backpacking, and I was walking like a horseless cowboy. But more on that next time.

Large cat included for scale. Want to take bets on how long I can go without casting on for a sweater? We’re planning a camping trip this weekend – only the fact that one of these skeins is about half the size of my sleeping bag in its compression sack may prevent me from bringing along a nacent sleeve-swatch. Don’t put it past me to leave my backpack zipper ajar so I can nestle a center-pull ball in the opening and knit on the trail with the yarn coming over my shoulder. (My husband is going to howl when he reads this idea.)