My attempt at a Chenille Blanket

A few weeks ago I was browsing through my favourite blogs and came across a sweet blanket tutorial that outlined how to make a Chenille Blanket.  I had thought about running out to the fabric store to buy some cute boy fabric but I showed some restraint (shocking I know!!) and went though my fabric stash to see what I might be able to use to make a smaller blanket to try out the technique to see if I actually liked the blanket before I undertook larger one.

I found a race car fat quarter to use as the 'top' and then found some green swirly flannel, blue bear flannel and yellow swirly flannel to top the back of the blanket.  I can't really call it a baby blanket, its more of a doll blanket for the girls to play with.

I sat down and sewed and sewed and sewed and sewed line after line after line (61 lines I believe!!) to make the columns and then hand cut 1/4 of the channels before giving in and buying a chenille tool at Michaels!!  Sometimes its just easier to have the right tools!!

This is the final product!  I was so excited to have it finished that I didn't square it up or finish it 100% properly but I think the next blanket has some serious potential.

As soon as any blanket (or anything) that I am working on touches the ground - Little L pounces on it faster than you can say 'off!' ;).  I think its got her stamp of approval!!

The back of the blanket - I think I did the Chenilling a little too close together but for my first attempt I think it was an ok first go.

A close up of the Chenilling.  I've washed this blanket twice and apparently the more you wash it the pluffier it gets.

I might try to make a few smaller strips and use them as burp cloths for when our little one comes in the summer.  Its pretty soft and I think it would be catch most of whatever the guy can throw at us!

Thanks for stopping by!

Monster Blanket - COMPLETE!!!

In a little over two weeks I managed to buy fabric, cut, sew, piece, quilt sandwich, quilt and hand bind an entire quilt for my baby nephew J - and DAMN it looked good if I may say so myself!  ;)

Little J was born on April 1st and his shower was this past Easter weekend.  It took me a few days to figure out what pattern I wanted to do and what kind of fabric I wanted to use but once I found the fabric and convinced myself that it would actually look good together I got to work on it.  Of course I wound up misplacing my camera for a few weeks so I didn't get many good 'in progress' pictures of the blanket but I did manage to take a few towards the end of the whole process.

This is the quilt top without the backing or the binding on:

This is the finished creation the day before the baby Shower - I can honestly say that I was seriously tempted to keep it for myself - it was so cute!!!!

A close up of some of the monsters and my awesome (not!) stitching in the ditch quilting technique!  The thread that I used for this blanket messed with my machine and thats where the loaner machine from my SIL came in!  It worked awesome!

I actually really liked how the black boarder worked well with all the blue and orange fabric - plus the monsters were adorable too!!!

A close up of one of the 9 patches.

The back of the quilt - it was super cute green and blue bubble print.

A close up of the stitching detail on the back.

So there it is, a super cute Monster baby blanket done in approximately 24 hours in just over 2 weeks!!  Not bad if I do say so myself!!  

Thanks for stopping by - sorry for the delay in posting this, I've had some issues lately!  :)

 

Fun with PomPoms

What do you do when Mommy has a migraine but the kids want to play?!  You remember a post on a blog you found about making pompoms and send the girls off to play while you hide in the dark and wish the pain would go away!!!

Miss S was totally in love with her pompom!!

Little L could barely keep it still for me to take a picture of it (and yes she was still in her jammies late into the afternoon!).

Ok, I'll admit it - they were pretty weak pompoms but it was my first attempt ever at them.....

The pompom trifecta!

I'm sure I'll get better with time!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the big reveal of whats been keeping me so busy the past few weeks!!!  I'll give you a sneak peak:

Four to Six WEEKS!?!?!?!?

So my wonderful, amazing, super awesome sewing machine that I've had for four years decided that it was time to throw me a curve ball and crap out on me (with some serious things on the go too!).  So I called the place I got it from to see if I could get it in within the next few days and they put me on the WAITLIST (what are we in school now?!?!) and said someone will call me to tell me to bring my machine in sometime between four to six WEEKS from now.....!  Apparently I am in the wrong profession, sounds like I could make a killing as a sewing machine repair-woman when people are needing to wait that long to get their machines serviced.

Super lucky for me my awesome SIL told me that her sewing machine was sitting idle and that I'd be welcome to use it until mine is fixed (which was sooooo freaking awesome BTW!).  MB as I like to call my borrowed machine (mini-brother) and I have had  few words while trying to get to know each other the past two nights but now we are running along smoothly as though we've known each other forever.....

My new little buddy......

'tis late and I gotta work in the morning - until next time!!

My Birthday Blanket update

Before we went on holidays (and I forgot my Gmail passwords for a few months...!) I started back to work on my Birthday Blanket (hmmm, need to figure out a better name for it than that....but that will come later) and got another 10 or so squares done - only another 120 or so more to go!!

Originally it was my goal to have this done before my 31st birthday, hopefully I can stick to that plan although it seems like I keep getting more and more things on my WIP list and not nearly enough are going onto my Finish Projects list.  I think that is life though, and hopefully I can get this a few more things done over the next few months - after all, what else am I supposed to do when it looks like this outside:

Until next time my friends....!

Note to Self - DON'T FORGET YOUR PASSWORD AGAIN!!

I think baby-brain has finally got the best of me and after trying to rattle my brain for quite a while I couldn't figure out my password for the life of me!!  After a few e-mails and a text from Gmail I am back in business.....which is a good thing since I've got a couple things on the go that I'm sure I can share in the next few days!!!