2 Quilts Finished Today!

I spent part of the day finishing up a couple of my quilts that I'm giving as Christmas presents.

The first one is one I made with Countdown To Christmas by Sweetwater.  I think the pattern is called the 1600 quilt..... 

I machine quilted it, just straight-ish lines down the middle of each strip with red thread.  The material that I used for the backing kept stretching on my and annoying the crap out of me.  When I was finished quilting it, it was puckering soo badly on the back, and then I noticed a spot on the front that was puckering pretty much, too.  UGH!!! 

At that point I decided to suck it up and just keep going.  I used the Polka Dot fabric from this line for the binding and it really was the perfect material from the line to use.  After I had the binding on it, I washed it (In cold water with a bunch of salt added to it to help keep the colors from running....) and then I dried it.  And when I took it out of the dryer, I fell in love with it!  It's perfect.  The material shrunk up just enough that the puckers I saw are now just part of the lovely quilty crinkliness.....  mmm...   Yep!  The quilt is perfect and I love it!!!

I hurried up and wrote on it just to make sure I DO give it to the intended recipient!! 

The second quilt I finished was the t-shirt quilt for #1 son.  It turned out wonderfully, too!  And I love it and I hope he's surprised and loves it as much as I do. 

It came out of the dryer with wonderful crinkliness, too.  I really didn't think it would, since it is made out of
t-shirts, but it did!! I used black flannel for the binding.  It's wonderful!!! 

So - - I don't think my Counting Christmas Candy is going to be done for Christmas.  The fabric I'm using between my blocks is the same kinda stretchy fabric I used on the back of the first quilt in this post.  And it's making my rows wonky........... so I'm going to be unstitching and restitching........  Oh, joy!!  I'm off work between Christmas and New Year's so.... maybe I'll get it done that week........

Have a wonderful Monday!  Thanks for stopping by!!

Hugs ~~ Suz

I'm linking here:

Counting Christmas Candy

I just wanted to post what I've been busy working on lately. 

I've got 3 quilts in the works, and have another one and a blanket in mind.....  It's official - - I just simply lose my mind this time of year.

First up ~~ Counting Christmas Candy



I was inspired by this quilt that Heidi made and is now available over at the Moda Bake Shop!



I am using the Sweetwater Countdown to Christmas fabric.  When I purchased the fabric, I got 2 jellyrolls - my first jellyrolls I ever purchased.  When I saw this pattern, I thought that I could do it....  I love sewing the strips together and then cutting out the shapes and sewing them back together! 

When I first laid it out, I laid the blocks out like she has them and I just wasnt' sure if I liked it.  Then I spun each triangle, and voile!  Counting Christmas Candy!  They remind me of peppermint candies...... Ok - so I don't know why, but they do....... 

I'm also working on a t-shirt quilt for #2. 

There are shirts on here from when he was just a little guy playing t-ball, some football, some soccer, all the way up to his men's baseball league shirt from last year.  Ms. C has a t-shirt quilt that a friend of her's had her grandma make, so I'm making this one just like it - no sashing and hand quilting.  I used Crayola washable markers to make my lines.  Hopefully it will come out!!

Ms. C's quilt has flannel on the back, so I had Mr. Inspiring take me to HL last weekend and got some black flannel for the backing.  Then, when I was hunting around in my craftroom, I opened a box that I hadn't opened for a while and found this:

This fabric has a 'copyright' date of 2000 and that sounds like the year I would have purchased it.  I was going to redo his room in all baseball and Cardinals.  I only made him pillowcases with this fabric.  I had almost enough  to do the back so I just made a strip of the black flannel and ran it down, off-centered.

When I found the fabric, I knew I HAD to use it.  He's always loved the Cards and now that they've won the world series....  well..... I just HAD to!!  The quilting is going rather quickly and I should have it finished up this week.  I think I'm going to use some of the flannel for the binding and call it done!

I've also got my first jellyroll quilt basted and it's ready to quilt.  I think I'll end up machine quilting it - stitch in the ditch.  I've been practicing stippling, but I'm not comfortable with it yet.

That's what I've been doing!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs ~~ Suz

Linking to these parties......

My Altered Canvas

First - - I need to start with a confession......  I've been so excited about all of the ideas I'm finding in Blogland.  I just can't wait to jump in and try some of the projects I've seen!!!  So.....  I really got wrapped up in blog-stalking.....and I guess I lost my creative mo-jo.....  It seems like every project that I wanted to get done for Christmas just......... well......... didn't go the way I had planned.  I wanted to make a cookbook for my daughter.  Thought I would do it sort of like a scrapbook.......... but then I couldn't find the papers I wanted to use.....  I really had a problem finding papers with kitchen/recipes kind of themes.......  soooo  Then the project changed into a recipe box.  I bought 4 paper mache boxes to decorate up as recipe boxes.  I could do 4 and give the other 3 as gifts to my sister-in-laws and mom-in-law.  But I couldn't get past the fact that my daughter had asked for a recipe BOOK.....  So, I decided to type up and print recipes on cards and put them in the scrap book.......... Well.... I couldn't find a printable recipe card template that I liked.  And I scrapbook sooo slowly.....  And then........... I happened to stumble on MyComputerIsMyCanvas blog........ And the SOOO-PER CUTE recipe cards she made with Scrapbook Max! ....... AND - - they have a 30-day trial period.....  So I downloaded it and OH MY!!  It is exactly what I was looking for!!   So I bought the software and downloaded it!!  But by the time I went through all of this, and considering I had at least 50 recipes I wanted to do............  I didn't get all the way done.  :-(   But I am halfway and I will get it done soon!  The Scrapbook Max! software is soo simple to use!  I love it!!!

So my next project was an altered canvas for my son.....  It SHOULD have only taken me MAYBE 3 hours to do.  Well - it didn't!!  It took me close to seven hours.  And I didn't take enough during pictures because I had to keep redoing parts of it.............  The next day I seriously had a bruise on my forehead.......  not really, but I should have!!

Anyway, here's the after picture and my instructions on how I made it.

First, I started out with a blank, new canvas.  I didn't want it to be WHITE, so I painted it with some acrylic craft pain.  The color is 'Steamed Milk'.  I wanted it to be distressed, so I then painted some chocolate and olive on it, and then wiped it off.  It was just NOT giving it the effect I wanted so I repainted it Steamed Milk.  I remembered that I had a script stamp and used gold and chocolate ink with the stamp and stamped my canvas.  In some places, the stamp is defined and in other places it's sort of blurred, which was pretty cool.  I then just took my chocolate stamp pad and rubbed it on the edges and here and there on the face. 

Then came the part that really had me frustrated.  I printed my picture on regular paper and when I started to mod podge it to my canvas............ IT WRINKLED!!!  So I pulled the picture off and reprinted it and tried again...........  It took longer for the wrinkles to come and then when I tried to pull the picture off, it stuck.............  So there I sat with a knife, trying to scrape it off............  after about an hour........ I FINALLY got it off.  I reprinted my picture on card stock and just took my time working with the picture and the mod podge.  The edge only got a little wavy -- NO WRINKLES!!!     I put a couple of coats of mod podge on the whole thing.  Tied the jute around it.  Painted the words on my heart and wrapped wire around it and attached it to the jute.  Stapled jute on the back to hang it with and there you go!!  I was really worried that my son wouldn't like it but he loved it............  YAY ME!!!


Thanks for looking and let me know if you have any questions!!!  

Hugs ~ Suz


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