Tada! Chenille Blanket

My Tada! posts have been few and far between this year.  I haven't done as much sewing/creating lately.  While prepping the house for the arrival of our daughter, my sewing things were relocated to our loft area.  Since I also have a 3 year old extremely curious little boy, I can't leave anything out and always need to clean up everything.  He is fascinated by the sewing machine and loves to turn/push any buttons.  

With starting a new job next week, I felt the need to finish up some things.  I purchased the fabric for this Chenille Blanket (Aesthetic Nest, Inspire Me Grey) probably close to two years ago and it's sat in my sewing room waiting for me to get the courage to start this.  It wasn't difficult by any means, just something different I haven't done before.

The sewing of the 1/2 inch spaced lines got quite tedious.  I started this around a year ago and finally picked it up again about 2 months ago.  Once I finished that, came the fun part of slicing the fabric. 

 

 This was my favorite part.  I found in my Amazon history I bought the slash cutter coming up on two years ago.  I've been anticipating this part ever since.  I have discovered that if I make another one of these, I should put the blanket on a table.  My bender-overer is a little sore.  Irish dancing this week was quite interesting.

After a spin through the washer and dryer, this is what I ended up with.

My 9 month old saw it hanging on the banister and seems to love the tactile feel of it.  It is quite soft. It will get even softer as it gets  washed.  Haven't decided the final destination of this one.  It may go to a future nephew.  My husband acted surprised I wasn't going to keep it.  I reminded him if I kept every blanket/quilt I made, we'd suffocate!  It might be hard giving this one up though.  Not sure if I'll make another one.  I'll probably end up buying more fabric next month.  Ha!

Christmas Update...I'm a terrible blogger

Christmas 2016 has come and gone.  My sewing list this year was much less ambitious than previous years.  I knew with baby coming in October, I would be busy even while being on maternity leave.

I had a brilliant idea to make my middle school aged niece and high school nephew fleece blankets for Christmas.  They run cross country and track and my SIL thought they'd get use out of them during their meets.  I started with the idea for the tie blankets, but I never liked how they didn't look too tidy and always end up a little wonky.  I wanted something durable as well.

I ended up making them like I do my burp cloths, sewing around, turning right side out then top stitching.  They turned out nice and fairly square for eyeballing it.  I used 2 yds of fleece for each one.  Their school colors are forest green and white with a little grey, but I couldn't bring myself to do a blanket that will most likely be used outside in white.  So I did the green with a very light grey on the other side.

Here's where my terrible part comes in...I failed to take pictures before wrapping them.  You'll just need to use your imagination.  My dad had this heavy wool letter blanket from when he was in high school.  I kept thinking of that while I made these.

The other thing I made this year, and failed to take a picture of was a little felt bear.  This year added a niece along with my Mallory to the family, but I wasn't making bears for my kids.  I figure I'll make them enough other things.  And the year Henry was born, I just ran out of time! I didn't get a picture of the one I made this year, but it looks quite similar to this one with the eyelashes.

That completes this years Christmas round up.  We'll see how much I get accomplished this year.  There's a new niece/nephew that is arriving in March so that means another quilt and eventually a bear.  Wish me luck!