Owl Lunch Bucket

This is Part II of the birthday gift for a good friend of mine. After decades of loving cows (we called her Walking Milk), she recently expanded her scope of adoration to include owls and hedgehogs. Very fashionable choices, yes, but what do I call her now that she worships three animals?

But it's her birthday today, and I thought I would make her something owlish. And practical, to make up for the ridiculous Part I of her gift.

So a lunch bucket.

with a drawstring opening

that can be tucked inside


or folded back down outside.


The strap doesn't have to stay up all the time


and unbuttons into a regular fabric bucket.


Very much like the old craft bag,
except it's normal-cylindrical and smaller.

I lined it with oilcloth so it can be wiped clean if it gets lunchy. This is the first time I've cut into my roll of oilcoth. I'd read all kinds of horrible things about how unusual it is to work with, and how one needed special tricks etc, so I attacked it with a healthy amount of skepticism. Found nothing weird about it at all. Sewed like paper, didn't stick in the slightest to the presser foot, behaved quite nicely, even around circular edges. What gives? Became suspicious that maybe mine wasn't real oilcloth if it didn't give me hell.

So that wasn't hard. The hard part was finding owl fabric. Owls are everywhere, but they're print, and print is hard for me. Spent more time tracking down unhideous (there are a LOT of them out there) owl fabrics than actually making the bag. This one, conveniently out of stock everywhere except ebay and etsy, is Kaufman's Urban Zoologie, in case you want to know.

I finished it today, and it's her birthday today (Singapore time). And she lives 14 postal days away. Oops.