Baby Blanket 101

Well, not quite.

So I had this cute fabric by Erin Michael for Moda Fabrics (I heart Moda!! - they have great fabrics!). The fabric was supposed to be an apron for a friend who turned out to be a toxic friend almost 4 years ago. Then I found out that Little Sister was pregnant and I thought to myself "What is cuter than a sock monkey baby blanket besides kittens? Nothing!"

I bought some of that fuzzy, soft red fabric that you can find in the kid's section at most fabric stores. I don't even know what it's called but it feels like a chinchilla. So soft.

My thought was to simply take the two fabrics: sock monkey and soft fabric, and sew them together (right sides together). Then I would turn the blanket right side out and add a simple satin blanket border. Easier said than done!

The sock monkey fabric is 100% cotton, which means it only stretches, if at all, in one direction. That red, fuzzy, soft stuff stretches in every direction! So, by the time I finished my edges, I had huge bubbles in the blanket between the layers! So annoying.

My blanket was fairly large at this point (I researched different sizes on Etsy and finally ended up with a 54" x 60" blanket) so I decided to go ahead and turn it so that the right sides were facing out. I flattened it out with my hand as much as I could and pinned it. Then I sewed it again. Well, it did better this time, but still not great. So I did it again. This time it was still bubbly but not nearly as noticeable. Third time's a charm, right?

Now that I had the blanket the correct (but smaller) size, I needed to add the border. I thought that a yellow border would be so cute with the red in the blanket. Oh it was...minus the fact that if you buy the pre-packaged blanket binding in satin, you can see right through the satin. Well, my seams weren't too pretty from all my resewing of blanket edges, so I had to come up with some other method.

I finally decided to use the stripe fabric I had bought with the sock monkeys. The colors are all coordinating so that was good. I took the fabric and cut it how I wanted it. I think I ended up with a 8" piece. I folded that in half and ironed it (and starched it!). I then ironed each of the sides in half so that it was 1/4 of it's original size. This way the fabric could basically act as a "bread" with the blanket being the "meat" in the "sandwich." Yeah, I know. Dumb analogy.

I had to do the striped border in 4 pieces because I didn't have the length to do one big piece that I could fold at each corner. Therefore, being my first baby blanket with blanket binding, my edges look horrendous, but passable. I also had a problem with the bubbles coming back along the edges while I was sewing but I did the best I could do given the circumstances.

Regardless, the baby will just be pooping and puking and drooling on the blanket anyway, so I'm not TOO worried about it being perfect. It's cute and that's all that matters in the end!