Baby Blankets

My husbands step sister was just recently blessed with the adoption of an adorable baby boy Jonah. We are so happy for them, they are one of the most deserving couples we know to raise a child. It got me thinking about what I would have liked to have when I had Riley and one thing I never got was a personalized blanket so I decided to make one for Jonah and then a couple more for some people that I work with and then I will make one for Riley, you know after some good practice! Here is how I did it, I guess you could call it a tutorial but I have never done this before therefore there may be a different and better way. I got the idea from this wonderful blog, Make it and Love it, and with some changes I made it my own!

What to buy:

2 yards total of fabric, I used 1 yard of minkey dot fabric and 1 yard of soft monkey fabric

Pins, lots of them

Heat bond paper, you don't need a lot just enough for the letters and it is cheap

Matching thread

Step 1: I started out with 1 yard of brown dot minky fabric, it is so soft and babies love it, this is on the bottom in the picture. It was a little bit wider than the monkey fabric so there will be some left over and you will use this for your letters and then later for another project. I also got 1 yard of the monkey fabric out of the baby section. I just lined them up to make sure they were approximately the same size. Make sure to prewash both fabrics and to at least iron the monkey fabric so the edges lay flat.

Step 2: I then went along the edge of the monkey fabric and pinned the fabric 1" up on the bottom so that I could make sure the letters were going to be in the right place.

Step 3: I went onto Word on my computer and printed out what I wanted the name to look like on the blanket. I got a heat bond backing and cut it the same size as the letters. I then had to trace the letters on the heat bond paper so that it was the mirror image, that way when you bond it to the fabric you can see the tracing on the back and cut out the letters the right way. Takes a little bit of thinking huh!



Step 4: I bonded the heat bond paper to the minky brown fabric. When you iron this on the dots will go away and that is ok, it stays so soft and it looks really cute even without the dots. I then placed the letters where I wanted them to be on the blanket (bottom right corner) and heat bonded them to the monkey fabric so they could stay in place for me to hand stitch.




Step 5: I just used brown thread for the hand stitching but on some of the others I used contrasting stitch colors which looked great too as long as you are fairly good at hand stitching.

Step 6: I then pinned the fabric face side together so that you only saw the wrong side of the fabric on both sides. I marked 1" around on the monkey fabric so I was sure to get fairly straight lines. I used a lot of pins because these two fabrics are so different, the minky brown is stretchy and kind of slick and the monkey is not stretchy and sticks.

Step 7: I then sewed all the way around the blanket except for about 6" at one of the corners. If I were to give you a word of advice it would be to leave the 6" on a side and not a corner because it will be easier to hide later. Be careful with the minky fabric because when you are sewing on it it folds up really easily, just make sure it is laying flat on your sewing machine.

Step 8: I cut the extra off of the corners before pulling the fabric through because then all the fabric doesn't bunch up and make the corner bulky.

Step 9: I then pulled the fabric through that 6" and made the blanket with the right sides out. The only thing that was left was the 6" opening and I just pinned it together like this so that I could do a top stitch to sew it together.



Step 10: I ironed the fabric so it would lay flat and then top stitched around the whole blanket which only took about 10 minutes total, minus the few hold ups that I had (aka baby, learning to actually sew, etc.)

It actually turned out pretty good, I feel good about it being my first blanket, now only 4 more to go but all in all if I could sit down and do one without interruptions it would probably take me about 1.5 hours, hand stitching takes the longest on the letters.

Here is another blanket that I made for one of my co-workers Jeffery. I love the colors and actually bought an extra yard of fabric in case I have another little boy to make one for, maybe my son someday! Here are pictures of it! I also made a matching diaper and wipe strap that I think would be very useful for the diaper bag, especially when you are going to a public restroom or just out of the house quickly. This tutorial is coming soon!