Dino Tails Were A Hit!

Now that the crazy holiday season has passed, I am finally back and happy to report that the dinosaur tails were a hit! The first night all the kids were together there was only The Nut's dinosaur tail to play with because the two other little boys hadn't opened theirs yet (because Christmas was a couple days away!).  But boy oh man did those kids have fun with the one orange dinosaur tail.  The 6 year old boy pretty much laid claim to it and refused to take it off, but all the other kids (3 and 2 year old boys and a 3 year old girl) pretended to be dinosaurs all night too.  I chased them and they chased me and around and around the house we went.  They roared and attacked my legs, all the while telling me what type of dinosaur they were supposed to be.  I really wish I had had more tails for everyone to wear!  I unfortunately forgot my camera that night, but here are some pictures of The Nut modeling all three tails. 

My husband and I agree that a slightly-less-stuffed tail is the way to go, that way it kinda hangs down like a real tail.  The Nut is usually clueless that he even has it on, although sometimes his hand brushes against it and he finds it and gets really excited.

I was still working on stuffing this one when I took this picture.

My previous post shows how I personalized the dinosaur tails with the kid's names, and also where to find the great tutorial to make these tails!

Dino Tails!

I was blog hopping the other day and came across the cutest thing to make for little boys: dinosaur tails!  Actually it'd be really cute too for the girl that loves her dinosaurs (I'd love to make a fuchsia tail with yellow spikes!)  Here's the tutorial over at Running With Scissors.  I'm making three of them to give as Christmas gifts: one for The Nut, and the other two for our friend's boys who are ages 3 1/2 and 2.  We will be with them on Christmas Eve and I can't wait to see the three boys running (well crawling in The Nut's case) around together as dinos.

As you'll see in the tutorial each tail requires 3/4 yd of main fabric for the body and 1/4 yard of accent fabric for the tail, so I just got three 1 yard cuts of vibrant fabrics and decided to mix and match the colors to make the three tails.  The fabrics are (see colored photo at the end):

• Kona Cotton in Tangerine
• Kona Cotton in Chartreuse
• Quilters Only Solids in Tahitian Blue

The Kona fabrics were just over 44" in width, so the fabric requirements worked out well and I actually have quite a bit of large scraps left over.  However, the Quilters Only Solids must have been 42" or 43", so I had a fabric shortage of the size pieces I'd need ( I am having to make the blue dinosaur tail 10" wide instead of 11").  So if you're making these and buying fabric not quite 44" (and plan on using it for both a body and spikes) then buy a little more yardage (I was only short an inch!).

I wanted to add just a little personal touch to each tail.  I love to embroider and decided I wanted to put each boy's name on the circular piece that eventually sits against their back.  This way when the tail isn't in use they can see it, but when it's on their name is hidden.  What kid doesn't love to have their name on something!?

Here's a short tutorial on how I often trace out my embroidery patterns onto the fabric without having to print them out on paper:

• Get your fabric pieces that you're going to embroider on.  Note that I embroidered on the square pieces, and then afterwards cut them into the required circles as suggested in the tutorial (well... my green one isn't quite circular, I cut off too much of the corners!).  This makes it easier to embroider within a hoop (I was using a 4" hoop), as it allows you to tug on the corners to tighten up the fabric.

• I downloaded the Jurassic Park movie font, opened up Powerpoint and used it to write out the boys' names:

• I then put it into presentation mode and hang my piece of fabric over the screen to see if it's the size I want it to be for my project.  If it's not, I exit presentation mode, change the font size (bigger or smaller), and check it again.  I use the ironed lines that divide the square into quarters to help me center the name. 

• When it's to my liking I hold up my fabric piece over the screen and using a water soluble marking pen, trace it over the screen (it's like having a tracing table :)  And this is what you'll end up with:

• Now I have never had a problem with getting any markings on my screen with this method.  And I suppose if you did, you could just use a slightly damp cloth to wipe it off.  However, when I traced the name onto the blue fabric, my blue marking pen didn't show very well.  In these cases, I use a dull pencil.  These pencil marks did show up slightly on my screen when my computer was off (you can't see it when the screen is lit though).  I did have to rub these off using a cloth that came with my computer.  I have tried using "white" water soluble marking pens/pencils in the past for dark fabrics, but I still have yet to find one that works well, so I use a pencil.  The graphite markings don't show very much as long as you embroider over them well enough, and eventually come out on their own.  

• For the outer lines I used the outline stitch, and for the inner lines I used the back stitch.  Here are two of the finished products:

Can't wait to show you my finished dinosaur tails!  And maybe a couple action shots of them in use after the holidays!  I was so happy to find this tutorial, as it's harder to find homemade things to make for boys than girls.

Growth chart for my boy

So one of my current projects is making a quilted growth chart for The Nut, where I will then be hand embroidering all his measurements on to it!  I stumbled upon the blog  The Student/Teacher and saw a beautiful growth chart and, luckily, Emily of The Student/Teacher also posted a fantastic tutorial on how to make one.  I started immediately cutting up the tiny squares it requires from my stash of scrap fabrics, and even my husband commented saying he'd never seen me get so excited about a project before!

For the tiny 1" fabric square markers, I mainly chose blues, browns, and greens, and then used some orange and yellow squares for accents.  After sewing the whole top together, some of my supposed to be 1" squares are alas-- not one inch... Maybe I was rushing due to my excitement... Anyway, it'll still be cute and nearly accurate for these purposes.  I wish I had first come across this tutorial over at Sew, Mama, Sew!, on how to make very accurate tiny squares without having the fabric get all distorted.  The next time I make a growth chart (my sisters are already putting in their orders for their future children :) then I'll use it!

See how my squares on the ends get distorted and smaller when sewn together!?

I'm in the quilting phase of the project, which requires straight line quilting every 1" so that it creates the "ruler" on the growth chart.  The Nut decided he wanted to help out, and pulled one of ends towards himself and realized he loved the large polka-dot backing.  So naturally trying to look at the back started a game of hide-and-seek.

 (iphone photos: just have to capture the moments when you can!)

My First Post!

After looking at and reading many many quilting & crafting blogs this past year, I have decided to start my own!  I hope that this will motivate me to do more of my own work and to finish up my ever growing pile of WIPs (works in progress) and to tackle the long list of bookmarked projects I've found on the interwebs.  I also like the idea of having a catalog of all my work to look at for years to come!  Enjoy and thanks for stopping by... and hopefully you'll see something to inspire you!