Finished - owl costume

Luke as an owl

Owl mask close up

At last, a finished project! Underneath the feathers is my older son Luke (aged 9), who played an owl in his school production of Dick Whittington last Christmas (I know, I didn't remember there being an owl in the story either).

The base of the costume is an old polo shirt of my father's. Actually, that is a lie...it wasn't very old, but Dad had bought it himself without Mum being there and he had chosen a particularly dreadful shade of 'draining beige'. Some people can bring this colour to life...not so my Dad. It makes his skin look jaundiced. Dad still doesn't know that Mum and I smuggled the shirt out of his wardrobe in a Tesco bag-for-life whilst he slept downstairs on the sofa.

The feathers are made from material bought from Beyond Fabrics (http://www.beyond-fabrics.com)and then left to ferment creatively in a drawer. To make the features, just cut the material into largish strips, create triangles out of those strips and then machine sew them on to the base, working to make sure they overlap.

The mask was made out of fabric recycled from a too-small pair of Luke's combat trousers that were too torn to give away. The elastic came from the waistband. The feathers on the mask mostly came from scraps produced when cutting out the larger feathers. However the nose (brown felt stuffed with toy stuffing) and the eyes had to be sewn by hand mostly. To get the right shape for the mask, I drew it out of paper, making sure he could wear it with his glasses, before cutting it out of the recycled trouser material.

I did not actually get to attend the play, as his father wanted to go, but apparently he made a very good owl and didn't forget any of his lines.