Reddit reviews The Owl and the Pussycat

For a friend's baby's birthday, I presented a copy of The Owl and the Pussycat and I made this toy to go along with. Thanks for the help on my original post asking for advice! I went with a teensy little satin stitch for the beak and just three stitches next to each other for the cat's eyes.

Lessons learned for if I do it again:

• The Joann Fabrics near me has basically no wool felt, and the nicer looking shiny embroidery floss is kind of awful and hard to work with
  
• For previous felt embroidery projects I just freehand cut things, and transferred patterns by drawing little dots on the fabric. This time I traced the pattern on to wax paper and ironed it on and OMG so much easier.
  
• How to start embroidery threads without a knot is invaluable information I wish I'd had years ago!
  
• somehow I had never discovered stem stitch before and I kind of love it.
  
  The only big unanswered question is how I should actually have handled tying off the knots when sewing the sides together. It's kinda haphazard as is and probably not terribly durable but my google-fu failed me in trying to find a better solution.
  
  Edit: also if I were doing it again I'd obtain a squeaky or a rattle to put inside, or maybe put a layer of crinkly plastic.

I really loved this one

http://www.amazon.com/The-Owl-Pussycat-Edward-Lear/dp/0399231935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396916240&sr=8-1&keywords=owl+pussycat

The illustrations are stunning and it really made an impression on my little mind. For that reason, most of the books I've been purchasing for our baby have wonderful illustrations.