Hear me RAWR!

With one of the nephews under our watch on Sunday afternoon, I had the chance to make a prototype pattern for an idea I saw through eighteen25's "You gotta see this" blog the other day.

I raided my stash of anti-pill fleece and let my nephew sort through my leftover felt from the Quiet Book project I made for him a while back. We came up with a Navy blue and red color combo, which he thought was really dinoriffic.

I measured twice..First around his waist, and then from his waist to the floor. I cut a piece of non-roll elastic for his waist ( subtracted 1 inch before cutting) and then got to work on his very own dinosaur tail pattern. I subtracted 2.5 inches from his waist to floor height, so that he wouldn't be tripping all over it, and also to keep it from dragging on the floor. I laid out my fleece doubled over, and drew a swoopy tail shape ( so scientific, I know) that was 2.5 inches less than his waist to floor height in length. For the spine of the dino tail, I cut squares out of stiff red felt ( from the craft section at Michaels) and cut those in half. I pinned them betwee

n the two layers of tail and then got to sewing, leaving a 3' opening at the bottom for stuffing.

Here's where our tail turned into a little "fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants-and-use-whatever-we've-got"...I stuffed the tail with scraps of polar fleece, since I did not have any batting. It worked, but I will definitely be using batting in the future.

I cut two slits in the fat part of the tail and weaved the elastic through ( like a belt loop of sorts). I handstitched the velcro closed ( my machine was hating trying to sew on velcro). He slipped both his feet through, pulled up the waistband, and ladies and gentlemen, bestill yourselves...it's the cutest dinosaur, EVER! I had to share with him while sewing this, that not all aunts can make dinosaur tails..He then says to me, " I know, aunt B, some make T-rex tails". He's probably right..I'll just let him keep thinking that all aunts spoil their nephews with capes and tails and quiet books and such, because I seriously have no willpower when it comes to cute kid projects.

Hear him RAWR!

He loved it so much so, that his dad sent me this picture from school the very next morning, with the following caption " It hasn't come off".