First Baby Blanket

My sewing machine was feeling a little neglected this past week. Since Nathan is on school holidays, I've been trying to spend my extra time with him rather than on my hobbies.

But Sunday night, I decided it was time to give my sewing machine a little attention again before I started losing interest in sewing. Is that even possible? I didn't want to find out.

I have a list of projects I want to try out and high on my list was a baby blanket. After all, that was one of my original reasons for wanting to take up sewing, wasn't it? Plus, Caleb only has one large-sized blanket that we can wrap him in without his little feet poking out.


I am so excited at how well this blanket turned out! It felt so good folding it up. It's like a store-bought blanket, except I made it!

After celebrating with me, Andrew admitted that he didn't expect it to turn out so well.

I sure showed him!

* * * * * * * * * *

Here's my super-easy (aka I don't really know what I'm doing but it worked) way of making a baby blanket:

1. Take two pieces of flanelette (1 meter each), line up the edges and pin.
I used the selvedges as guides to make sure the top and bottom edges were straight.

2. Place the two pieces of fabric right sides together and sew all the way around, leaving a bit of space to flip it right side out.
This part took me a long time. The two selvedge edges and the top edge was nice and straight but for some reason, the bottom edge took me three tries. Three tries = a lot of seams to rip open.

3. Flip it right side out, push corners out and press.
I like doing this part. It's like the half-way mark and the hard part (making sure all the edges are straight and perpendicular) is all done and it's smooth sailing from hereon in.

4. Top-stitch all the way around close to the edge to close the seam.
I learned this from making the passport sleeves. This is probably my favourite part. Makes me feel so professional.

5. Top-stitch around again, about 1/2" in from the first one.
I copied this from the original blanket. Love how finished it looked after this.