Walking With Dinosaurs

One more nephew has a birthday coming up...this time, it's my great-nephew and he will be all of one year old! I made a rag quilt for his sister (who will be here soon!) and thought I'd make one for him as well. But a little more "boy-ish", of course:


Aaaaah...it's a friendly dinosaur......And now a close-up on the face:


Um, can I just say how much I lovelovelove these rag quilts? They're a bit time consuming but sooooo worth it...at least I think so....This one went a bit easier than the last one as I sorta/kinda knew what I was doing. Sorta/kinda. At least I didn't get completely stressed out and have to look up words like "baste" and "chain stitch".

Let's look at some more pictures, shall we? The top half:


And the booty half:


And this is the back of the quilt:



My nephew's birthday party is tomorrow and hopefully he'll like it. Well, as much as a one year old can like a blanket. I've got lots of birthdays and gifts to make in April. Time to get busy!

My Very First Handmade Gift of the Year!

OK, here it is....my very first handmade gift of the year! I made this rag quilt for my nephew and niece-in-law's (is that a word?) new baby. Well, for the baby shower:



Cute, right? And here's a close-up of the face:




It's actually quite large. Of course, I forgot to measure exactly how big it is but I'd say it's probably 3 feet wide and maybe close to 5 feet long. Yeah, it's a big sucker. Now, before you go thinking, "Oh, Darci probably has lots of sewing experience under her belt to make something this awesome", (that is what you were thinking, right? Right?) the answer would be a resounding NO! I can sew a straight line and sometimes not even that. But I fell in love with this pattern so I decided to give it a try.

I'm not gonna lie to you.....it kind of stressed me out. I had never actually used a pattern before but I thought the instructions would be pretty self explanatory. When I read the instructions, I immediately thought, "Oh crap" and ran out to buy a "Everything you need to know about sewing" book. And a seam ripper. I also had a little difficulty with the embroidery for the mouth....if you look closely, it sort of looks like an old lady putting on lipstick.

But I think it turned out pretty good and I see a few more these rag quilts in my future. I'm working on my next gift and I can't wait to show it to you!