birthday project!

i'm finally at liberty to reveal my super secret special project from back in february, since it was given as a first birthday gift to our nephew, evan tonight:

my mom mentioned several months ago that my sister in law had mentioned wanting a "tag blanket" for evan and so she was planning on making him one for his upcoming birthday in march. i was even with her when she bought some of the fabric for it. well, i found the fabric later as we were going through her projects, and it had been bagged up with a couple of other pieces of fabric and some ribbon which i assumed was to make the tags.

i took a few other creative liberties with the front design, which i did as one big quilt block (log cabin pattern maybe? anybody out there know for sure? i've learned what little i know 100% by watching my mom, so i have virtually no technical names for anything) with an appliqued "e" in the middle for evan!

i also did a little patch using the alphabet stitching feature on my sewing machine (which is also thanks to my mom) to explain the significance of the project to evan when he's older. it reads "made with love from nana's stash for ewd 3-16-08."

all wrapped up with love and ready to go:

considering that it was my first foray into appliques, quilt piecing, using iron-on interfacing, and experimenting with the alphabet stitching, i thought it turned out really well! although a total labor of love, i really had fun with it and was very proud to give it to this sweet boy:

and i think his mom and dad are hopefully happy with it too!

birthday success!