Monday, October 29, 2012

No Sew Blankets

This year, I decided to make most of my Christmas presents. For all the little people in my life, I picked out this easy pattern of a no sew baby blanket. It was a link I found on Pintrest, and followed to THIS blog. I also used some ideas and hints from a pattern in THIS book.

Fleece is quite pricey around here, 16.99 a meter and up, ouch! Thankfully last month, about a week before we moved, a friend of mine heard about a sale. A good sale. The only catch was you had to have a store card, which cost 20 dollars. The fleece was on sale for 3.99 a meter, I figured it was worth the 20 dollars. Unfortunately, it was only the patterned fleece on sale, so I originally planned on making these double sided with the same pattern instead of one patterned and one plain as in the orginal. As you will see in a bit when I stop blabbering, I eventually changed that. So, I purchased 2 meters of 5 different patterned fleece, for about 50 dollars. Even with the 20 dollar card expense, we figured I had saved between 75 and 100 dollars. Wow.

So here is the super simple method of making a fleece blanket. I started out with the fabric we had picked for our nursery. I figured if I am going to screw up while learning, it best be on one I did not plan on giving away! Once again, the pattern was in inches, and while I started in Metric I finished in Imperial.

I started with a piece of fabric one meter square, as it was cut at the store. I forgot to take initial pictures, so this one is after a few steps. I had to cut off a white strip on two sides, so it is not quite straight and square. The pattern in the book said to cut a 5 by 5 inch square out of cardboard, and use that as a pattern to cut out the same from each corner of the fabric. There are going to be lots of scraps, so I plan on using them for a later craft.I did a lot of the first steps on the floor because my table is a bit overloaded right now. When cutting out the corners, I had a really hard time keeping 2 pieces of fleece together and even, so I gave up on the double sided blankets and decided to go single.


The next step is to cut strips one inch apart all along each side. I decided it would be easier to measure and snip, then fully finish the cuts.


I set a ruler on my fleece about one inch from the edge and just snipped a bit at each one inch mark.


It ended up working out well, The last one was just a smidgen bigger or smaller than the rest on each side. 


Finally, I went back and cut all the way up. I only did one side at a time, though.


The final step I started on the floor, but then got up and finished while I watched television. My fingers easily worked while I was absorbed into the show. I just grabbed each one and looped it into a knot.


 And the finished blanket. One fringe I ended up cutting off, it was in the corner on one side and I had accidently cut to close to the one beside it. I cut it off for safety's sake because with a good tug it probably would have come off, and I don't want baby to get that in her mouth!!


Now...only four more to go! It took my about an hour and a half work over two days to do the first one, so I should be able to make short work out of these!

Hope everyone is having a great day, and everyone who is in the path of this oncoming hurricane stays safe!

~Natasha.

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