Easy Baby Blanket Tutorial

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I find that there are a great many people in my life having children right now. This has been made abundantly clear in the last couple of months. My cousin's wife is 6 or so months pregnant, my brother's wife just had their first baby, and one of my best friends is going to pop in June! Yes, I realize that is only three people, but that number does not even include all the people that are trying to have babies and will probably do so in the next year. I am just at that age, late twenties, where people start popping out babies like crazy. I am not complaining, I love babies, especially all the cute stuff I get to look at while preparing to make gifts for them.

That brings me to the following baby blanket tutorial. I am not new to sewing, but I am also far from being skilled at it. I did a lot of sewing research before attempting the following blanket, but I did not find  a tutorial that I liked. So I decided to wing it. The following is my rendition of double sided baby blanket with a border.

I have found explaining my process much more difficult than the actual process was. If you need more pictures or a better explanation, just let me know.

Easy Baby Blanket

Supplies:

  • 1 1/4 yard of two different print materials - a total of 2 1/2 yards of material
  • Matching thread
  • Several pins
  • Sewing machine
  • Ruler
  • Pen
  • Scissors
  • Sewing needle
  • Iron
Step 1: Pick your prints.






Pick two corresponding but different fabric prints and purchase 1 1/4 yards of each. I used two flannel prints from Joann's. They were 50% off, so I only spent $8.00! I decided to go with monkeys and polka dots, I think they go well together.





If the fabrics have writing along the edge like mine did, trim this off. If you have to do this, make sure to trim the same amount off of the other piece of fabric.




 
Step 3: Pin material together and sew.






Face the prints together, with the backside of the prints on top and bottom, and pin the edges together. Then sew all four edges. Yep you heard me, sew all four sides.





Step 4: Mark the blanket every 3 inches.
Make an X on the corners.





Take a ruler a measure 3 inches from the seam and a take a pen and make a mark every 2-3 inches along each side of the blanket. On the corners, make sure to measure 3 inches from both seams and make a little X where the two sides meet, as seen in the picture. This will end up being the border for your blanket. :)













Choose one of the corner X's and fold the fabric along the line you made with your 3 inch markers. Take scissors and cut a small hole along the 3 inch line.

Once you have done this use the whole you create to cut along the 3 inch marker line on all four sides until you have three separate pieces of material. You should have two squares and one that looks like the image below.
Step 5: The third piece of  material. A frame?















Step 6






Take the large frame like square you made and cut each corner diagonally from point to point.

You will now have 4 long strips.









Step 7: Pin opposing material and strips together






Okay, now the real fun begins.

Take one of your strips and lay it out flat in front of you. Choose one side to begin. Take the opposing square material and pin them together, with the prints facing each other.

Repeat until you have sewn all four sides.

Do not worry about the corners. You will sew those up next.


Step 8: Sew up the corners.






When you finish with step 7, you will have four corners that look something like the image to the right. Now you will sew up the corners.

To do this, you match up the edges, with the print facing each other, and sew along the edge. Make sure you do two things.

  1. Sew over the seams on either side of the corner.
  2. Do not sew too far over the bottom seam, towards the middle of the blanket. This will cause a bunch when you turn in right side out. 
Repeat on all four corners.
It should look like this when you turn it over.



When you completely finish sewing the corners, you
will end up with this.






Step 9: This is what it will look like after you have done
one side.






Almost done! Now take the other square of material and match it up to the opposing material on the frame square. Pin one edge at a time and sew along that edge. Again ignore the corners.

Repeat on all four sides.




Sew up 3 of the corners, the same as you did before. Make sure to leave one corner un-sewn.

Once you have finished with the three corners. Turn the blanket right side out and hand stitch the remaining corner. It will look a little off, but it does not look bad. My husband did not even notice, when I asked him to tell me what was wrong with the blanket. :)



Iron the edges and the inside seam.





Hand stitch a couple stitches on each corner seam where the border meets the blanket. This will help keep the blanket in place during the many washes a baby blanket endures.



Viola! You have made a blanket. It was easy wasn't it? Bask in the glory of creating a blanket for $8!



















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