Christmas, 2010

Alright. Christmas time! Christmas for 2010 was fun. I decided to take on a huge endeavor and wanted to make a Toothless stuffed animal from Dreamworks "How to Train Your Dragon". I didn't want to go buy a toy from a store, because they were either (1) out of stock or (2) just poor quality and not very cute.

I made my own pattern, but I have moved several times and have seemed to have lost everything. I was so busy in trying to get this gift done in time, I wasn't smart enough to take pictures or scan anything into a computer. Back then, I also didn't have much access to a computer. I remembered to get pictures of the finished product.

The pictures are a bit dark, so I'll give the schematics: in the end, Toothless final measurements were 2 1/2 feet from nose to tail and the wing span was 3 1/2 feet all the way across. There isn't any cross bones on the Toothless' tail, but I wanted to make it specialized for my nephew and he likes pirates. For my first prototype, it didn't turn out too bad and my nephew was two at the time and he loved it anyway.

My older brother is really good with his hands and has built his own wood shop in his garage. He builds side projects whenever he has the time and the products turn out really great. He has an apron that he wears while working that he has had for years and it was starting to look a little worn, so I thought I would make my brother a new one. One day while he was out, I nabbed his apron and made a pattern so I knew what I was working with. I used a canvas like material because its durable and can take a beating. I asked a friend who has a embroidery machine and asked her to embroider his name and shop name onto the apron and pockets. He was excited and pleased with the end result.

My dad was a truck driver and was always on the road. We, his children, decided that we should make a gift that he could take with him and remind him of home. As spur of the moment, we decided to make a quilt using his favorite colors and print our pictures on it. I was in charge of assembling the quilt. I spent hours cutting out squares and debating the best pattern. This was the one I ended up liking the most.

Now, we were told that my dad wasn't going to be home for Christmas, so this project wasn't the top of my list of things to get done. Then out of the blue, and by some Christmas miracle, Dad was coming home. I went from a time of having three extra days after Christmas to a meer 48 hours before Christmas. Luckily for me, I had the patches sewn together and passed it on to my sister-in-law to get the pictures printed onto the white squares. It was then brought back to me to finish and I stayed up all night, the day before Christmas, finishing the quilt. I was tired and groggy and a bit cranky, but it was done and it looked amazing.