I was going to make the monster as written, but it occurred to me that a) my niecelet’s nursery is owl-themed, and b) I could therefore adapt the monster into an owl fairly easily.

Doing monster head as written through round 14. Marking center as for owl pattern and following that decrease pattern, face assembly as for owl pattern. Not sure whether wings will be done as written for owl but attached as for monster arms, or if I will be Making It Up As I Go (or else just leaving them off entirely). Mostly made up. No wings.

6/19 - after a couple lopsided starts (spheres are hard, yo), am on track through r6. will use loop of white yarn to mark first st of r9.

9/6 - Done with owl body, but not embellishments; started blanket. Ran out of light purple at end of r7.

9/26 I have no idea what I was smoking when I added a 4.5mm hook as I don’t actually have one. And I don’t know if I used a 5 or a 5.5 … trying 5, will redo if tight.

10/2 Decided on 5.5 -- two rounds dark purple done. Putting blanket part aside for now.

Sometime in the subsequent months: eyes added, improv style, as niecelet is too young for craft eyes.

Left eye: ring of 8 hdc in black, then three rounds white with usual increase formula for a flat circle (2 sts in each st / inc + plain / inc + 2 plain) but changing from slst to sc to hdc to dc to hdc to sc to slst, so that the pupil ended up lopsided.

Right eye: three rows white sc in usual increase formula.

Both eyes attached by slst through the fabric, one st per st, black tails fed through and knotted for additional security. Right pupil embroidered as if asterisk but more crowded.

Beak added with embroidery, lines done outside in.

12/16 -- owl finished, sewn on, stuffed, sewn closed. (Sewn before stuffing so that ends could be knotted.) Two rounds sparkly grey added to blanket. Current plan is two more, then finish with “rnd 17” in silver and “rnd 18” in dark purple (if I have enough left, otherwise a light-med range purple).

12/20 -- purple edging looked odd so I stopped with the silver. Which means this is done I guess? yay?