Over the weekend I completed my second chenille blanket. I completed my first one over the summer for my friend's little boy. After seeing this tutorial at the Aesthetic Nest Blog for a chenille blanket I wanted to give it a shot. I had no idea how much time it would take to sew all of the lines and cut all of the channels with scissors, but when it was done and it came out of the dryer it was amazing, even though I couldn't feel my thumb for weeks after all of the cutting.
my first chenille quilt
Since the first one was such a success and since I was given an Olfa chenille cutter as a present from my aunt Christine I decided to give making a chenille quilt another go. Last Black Friday I spent hours at Joanns with my mother in law, and one of the fabrics I picked up was a blue flannel with blue VW bugs all over it, and I bought it with my uncle Lance in mind since he's in love with his restored baby blue '73 VW bug, so a chenille blanket for his birthday using the flannel was perfect.
I paired the flannel with three solids, a dark blue, a light blue, and a light grey. After layering them I pulled out my cone of blue thread and walking foot and started sewing.
And sewing...
Until the sewing stopped. Or I should say, until I bent my last sewing machine needle.
And the sewing ground to a halt.
But then the hubs ran out and got me a new set of machine needles, and the sewing continued.
The sewing part of the project lasted as long as it had my first time making a chenille quilt, but the cutting portion was a breeze using the chenille cutter. Unfortunately it was at this point in the process that my camera pooped out and so I don't have any pictures of what the quilt back looked like cut or after it had been washed. And since it was a birthday present for my uncle I had a timeline for when I had to give it away, so I wasn't able to get a picture of it before it went to him, though he did promise to snap a photo of it when he got a chance.
Another project I whipped up this week was a birthday card for my aunt. She's been wanting new curtains for her living room and so for her present I'm going to make them for her. Since I didn't have anything to physically give her for her birthday I wanted to make her a card that symbolized the gift. The idea I had was to make a card with a window on the front, and make a curtain on the window. Yeah, pretty cheezy, but I liked the way it turned out.
For the message part of the card I decorated the edges with stitching. To get even stitching I ran the edges under my machine with the stitch length set to 5 with no thread in the needle, so basically I punched holes evenly along the edges, and then went back with my embroidery thread and needle and threaded the thread through the pre-punched holes.
Now onto the surprise. Tomorrow I'll be hosting my first giveaway! Since I'm also a big fan of papercrafts in addition to sewing the team at My Memories gave me a free copy of their My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software and I've been having fun playing with it.
The first project I made with it is a calendar. I'm a big fan of staying organized, so it's important to me that I remember all my appointments, and for that a calendar is necessary.
I made this September calendar a few days ago using the software and I loved it. It was so easy to use, and had so many fun options. The version I made myself included my appointments and reminders on it, but I wanted to post a blank version of it here in hope that some of you might be able to use it as well.
Check back here tomorrow for the official launch post of the My Memories giveaway and my review of the software, and check back in the following days for a few more projects I've done using it!
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