Birthday Gifts

We went to two birthday parties this weekend. My parents went to two funerals this weekend. Strange.
I decided last week that I should knit each of these children their birthday gifts - just feeling a bit inspired at the time, I suppose.
For 5 year old Quinn, whose birthday was "A Party Under the Sea":




And for Seamus, who loves Owls - for reasons that are completely unknown by his parents:




Why is it that I can never take/post just one picture of an item? I love all of the photos, and the character they seem to show.

The scoop on these:
I made both of these without any patterns - hurray for me - I feel I am finally branching out and taking some risks. I am usually such a pattern person, never confident in my own creative/design abilities.
The mermaid was made with the Knitted Babes design in mind, obviously. Though, I knit her in the round, and made her much smaller than the other Babes. Plus, I added the tail. I am excited to make a larger mermaid from the Dream Toys book at some point, but don't have the book for the time being.

I designed the owl after looking at a lot of different knit, crocheted, and sewn owls. I combined a few ideas and made up a few ideas. I might post the pattern I wrote for this someday, as a freebie. Remember those sock alteration patterns I promised? Yeah, we'll see!
I was really happy with the way the owl turned out, and I don't even crochet....but it really needed some crochet for the eyes and the base, so....I learned a new trick!
I am in the process of making an identical mermaid for Zora, as she screamed and begged and cried for me to give her Quinn's mermaid, and to make Quinn a different one. When Quinn's mermaid was a mere empty, headless torso, still on the needles, Zora begged "can my hold her and hug her?" How can I resist? Zora's is almost finished - she just needs a face - and I swear, she looks exactly like Quinn's!