Whoo!

Can you tell what this is?

This is trying to be an owl. My nice neighbor, whose name I don't know, whom we refer to as Yuzu's (the dog), dad, gave it to me. He is a friendly man who comes to watch over the neighborhood kids with Yuzu while I do crosswalk duties. He often brings me presents such as hand painted baskets, pickles, a scarf, hand-made Girl's Day dolls and now this little owl. He and his sister run a care center for older people in the neighborhood and every day maybe 5 or 6 obaachans and ojiichans (grandmas and grandpas) come for the day and make hand crafts. I get the fruit of their efforts!

The little owls are seen quite a lot in gift shops etc. in Japan especially in the country tourist spots. In Japanese, "owl" is pronounced fukuro and fuku means "happiness" so this is a play on words. People will often collect owl decorations as a sort of good luck charm.

Here are some loose directions for making an owl. As it was explained to me, the fabric is cut into a triangle and a smaller triangle is appliqued on one side. Two triangles are sewn together with the bottom left open for turning and stuffing. After lightly stuffing, the bottom is gathered and tacked and the tip of the triangle is turned down to make the head and beak. The eyes and a small triangle of felt are glued in place as is a stick from the forest to make it look like the owl is sitting on a branch. Sort of clever and easy enough for the obaachans to make.

Whoo!