Owl Mug Cozy

This was another Christmas present make, this time for my sister in law, who really likes owls. I found this pattern for a mug cozy on ravelry, and it is available as a free download here.

The pattern itself does not use up a large amount of yarn, so it really can be a little stash buster, especially if you use different colours for different parts, which is recommended as it allows the little details to stand out.

This is a crochet make, and being primarily a knitter I did struggle a little bit. I know my basic crochet stitches, and the main part of the cozy I got done no problem. The only difficult part was the feathers on the belly of the owl. The stitch used is known as crocodile stitch, and fortunately there is a link to another website, on how to do it, in the pdf pattern, which is hyperlinked, and if you have the pattern open in a web browser, clicking on it will take you to it. The guide is good, and has clear pictures to help you along.

Admittedly the crocodile stitch is very very daunting for someone new or not experienced in crochet, and you really do have to just take it one step at a time to get through it. The stitch does use something called a Back-Post Double Crochet, which you might as well be speaking russian to me, I had no idea what it was... There is a link in the website tutorial for crocodile stitch for back-post double crochets, but I did find a "For Dummies" website which I found easier to understand here.

The owl itself is mostly modular, so you crochet all of the parts and then sew them together. What you will need, apart from a hook and some yarn, is two buttons, try and get ones that compliment the yarn that you have used. It might even be worth crocheting the whole thing and then finding buttons that fit, and go with it, or else finding some buttons before you start, and then crocheting the loops on the back to fit the buttons. But that is up to you.