Sometimes, when you've been working on the same project for a while, it's nice to have some quick wins.
On Sunday, I put together a self-binding receiving blanket. I mostly used the Cuddle Baby Self-binding Receiving Blanket tutorial found at the Shannon Fabrics Blog. I used flannel for both the front and the back and made it rectangular instead of square. The backing fabric I made 41"x45", and the front fabric I made 28"x32", so altogether it is 34.5"x38.5". It came together fairly easily and quickly and I am quite happy with it. Now I just need the baby to be born.
Last night, I also decided to throw something together for a co-worker's new nephew. I have been interested in trying my hand at a tag blanket, but had never gotten around to it. I decided that I could pull it together with materials I already had. I got out my ribbon supply (thanks to anyone who has given me a present with ribbon on it), and my fabric, and set to work. I pieced together a couple pieces of flannel for what I thought would be the front of the blanket, and grabbed an extra piece of denim I had lying around for the bag. I decided to put the baby's initial on the denim with a piece of flannel. Once everything came together, the denim piece looked nicer than the flannel piece, so I switched what I considered the front and what I considered the back. Big shout out to Becky for helping me with my last minute idea - she handled the ribbon aspect of the blanket.
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| Flannel side |
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| Denim side |
Blanket might be a bit of a misleading word. I cut my squares 11.5", so that the finished square is 11". We felt that 3" of ribbon made a good finished size for the loops, so we cut each piece of ribbon 3" long. We pinned the ribbon tags in place on the top of the flannel square and I stitched around the edge, about 1/8" in, so that the ribbon would stay in place for when I stitched the two sides together. Once I had stitched them together and turned them right-side out, I topped stitched the outside. It really added nicely to the look.
