A Stick Horse for Christmas

Christmas gift #1 is done. [BIG SIGH]

I'm only making two gifts this year, one for my daughter and one for my son. And this stick horse is for my little girl. I really hope she likes it!

I followed THIS really awesome tutorial from ikatbag. Pattern pieces and step-by-step directions really helped me through the process (I was actually rather nervous to start.) I have never done a dart before (warning: this pattern contains a dart! Would you have guessed?). But I can now say that I've done one. Yay for learning new things! I know I made a few mistakes, but hopefully, you won't catch them. 

I seriously could not BELIEVE that when I turned the finished horse head right-side-out that it looked pretty close to what it was supposed to. Hurray!

Here's the view my daughter will have riding the horse:

All fall, she would find branches behind our building and ride them around like a horse. I may be chancing things by giving her an "inside" stick, but I think she'll have fun with it. And we have a long hallway on our floor.

The other reason why I made her a stick horse for Christmas was because my grandma made me one for Christmas when I was little. I was too young to appreciate her sewing skills, but I sure do now. Though my grandma is no longer with us, it was kind of nice to reminisce, and think about her a bit as I sewed up this horse. Oh, and by the way, I grew up calling it a "mop horse." Did anybody else, or was that just our family??

Seven days left... happy crafting and sewing!

PS: I took these pics with my phone, in a rather dark and gloomy bedroom (go away rain!) because, of course, I didn't want my kids to see this horse...and have I mentioned that neither one of them nap anymore? Right on. So I had to be stealthy...