She Will Finally Complete a Baby Blanket!

I realize that I have not posted anything in a little over a week, but I really have been busy working on projects!  This baby blanket project has actually been in progress for over 2 weeks and I finally finished it last night!  As with my first sewing project, the "super easy" pillow cover, the seam ripper and I spent a LOT of time together. 

The inpiration for this project is a blanket a good friend of mine gave me when we found out we were pregnant with Morgan.  It is a beautiful blanket that we used constantly for Morgan's first 4-6 months of life.  Everywhere we went we would bring this blanket and lay it on the floor so she not only had a clean space to play but also so we wouldn't get spit up all over someone else's floor (my daughter could and would projectile spit up at any given moment). A co-worker of mine is also pregnant with a girl and is due 3 weeks after me.  I had originally planned to sew this blanket for her daughter, but as you will soon see there are quite a lot of mistakes and frankly, it is my pride and joy, so I probably won't be giving it up anytime soon. 

Let's start with a picture of the inspiration blanket.  When I brought this blanket in to the fabric store and told her what I wanted to do, she suggested I start with something a little more simple (READ: do not put one big square in the middle with a minky border).  I assured her I was up for the challenge and all she could do was remind me that this was not a project for someone with OCD.  While I admit that I do have a minor case of OCD, I have pretty much let that go when sewing, so this was not an issue.

After selecting some bright and fun fabric for this project, I used my brand new quilting ruler to cut out my squares, then carefully pin them together.  I find that I actually really enjoyed cutting the squares with my rolling cutter, cutting mat, and new ruler!



After getting all of the patchwork sides together, I needed to measure and determine the length for the middle square and surrounding minky border.  Let me tell you, this was a HUGE pain in the BUTT!  Math is not my strongest subject and I haven't exactly mastered sewing, so when all of the patchwork sides were finally sewn around the middle square, there were a lot of mismatched points, as evidenced in the picture below.

By this time, I wanted to get this project over with, so I really did NOT care about perfection. 

I then pinned the flannel back fabric to the front patchwork and proceeded to sew the two pieces entirely together (no room to turn it right side out).  At this point, I did a half cry and half laugh.  After one day of mental rest, I picked up my trusty seam ripper, ripped out one side and carefully sewed up all but 6 inches of one side.  I pulled the baby right side out and voila!

In order to close up the opening, I placed a top stitch about 1/4 inch all around the edge of the blanket. 

The final step in this crazy project was to "stitch in the ditch" as the JoAnn saleslady advised me.  Basically, I sewed all around the large inner square.  By this point, I was really tired and as previously stated, not in the mood for perfection, so it isn't the most straight line and it is visible on some parts of the quilt. 

At the end of the day, despite all of the little mistakes, I am SUPER proud of my first baby blanket!  Plus, I have found that I really LOVE to cut and sew together patchwork squares.  I will probably use the remaining fabric to make another baby blanket, but ONLY 6 inch patchwork squares.  NO CRAZY MIDDLE!  Maybe the next one will look less crazy and I can give that to my co-worker as a play mat for her daughter. 

Not much more cooking this week, but I am sure I will have at least one more project to post about next week.  My husband has been off this week and has been hard at work on several different projects (I put together a fairly extensive list for him)! 

Lori