I was inspired to make a snowy owl as my first amigurumi project. First stop, craft store for some simple white cotton yarn. Next, the Internet to look at dozens of pictures of white owls. Then, it was just me, my hook, and some yarn. I played around with single crocheting in the round making flat, circular, and tubular structures until my owl began to take shape. I cut up some old, clean, white socks to use as stuffing. The body and head are one, continuous piece. So, I stuffed as I crocheted to make sure the dimensions felt right, and so I could easily close the form when I reached the top.
Once the main form was done, it was time for the fun little embellishments. Using more white, cotton yarn, I crocheted wings, a tail, and legs. I added stitches to resemble feathers to these forms going for realistically thick plumage. For the eyes, I used cotton crochet thread and single crocheted in the round. While researching snowy owls, I noticed their eyes tended to be yellow, but a few had uniquely blue eyes. An interesting color that I just happened to have in crochet thread. I wanted to crochet all of the embellishments, but all of my prototypes for talons came out like malformed X's. Going with the idea of "easy does it," I went to my stash of pipe cleaners and constructed talons and a beak. After sewing or twisting on the embellishments: viola! The final product!
