Baby Blankets

I decided quite a while ago that I wanted to make baby blankets for the kid. I did some searching and found that strip quilts were pretty easy and awfully cute. I figured it would be personal and hand-made, and allow me to add some color and patterns to the room.

Step 1. Cut fabric into strips
I went on my favorite online fabric store and ordered 6 different quilt fabrics of coordinating colors, and 2 different colors of minky dot fabric for the backer. I cut the minky stuff into large squares, roughly 40" x 40", and I cut the quilt fabric into strips that were the length of the bolt (roughly 40ish"), and between 7-12 inches wide. Then everything got washed and dried and ironed. (The smaller the strip, the more likely it was to get completely mangled in the dryer - so the ironing took a lot of time). Then I took a couple strips and laid them on the table to plan out the set up.

freshly ironed strips get arranged on the table

Step 2. Sew strips to each other
Then I took two strips, pinned them face-to-face, and sewed along the long edge. Geometric designs made it much easier to sew straight. After I finished one, I would pin on the next and sew it on, until I had about 6 strips sewn together, roughly the size of the final blanket.

pinning two strips together

Step 3. Attach strips to backing
Once I had sewn enough strips together to be as big as the final blanket, I pinned the minky stuff face-to-face to the strips and started sewing along the edges. The minky stuff is really stretchy and fluffy, so it was kind of a pain to work with. Lots of pins were required to keep things flat and even. Once I'd sewn along three sides, I sewed most of the fourth side, leaving a couple inches open to flip it out.

Step 4. Flip & Handstitch
Then I flipped it right-side out. Using a needle and thread, I handstitched the last few inches that were left open. Then I added a few stitches in the middle of the blanket to keep the strips attached to the backing material.

flipping the blanket right-side out

hand stitching in the middle

Step 5. Repeat
I had to buy a full yard of each quilting fabric, so I had 6 yards to work with, but used only about 1 yard per blanket. So I made lots of blankets, trying to use up all the strips. Since they all look pretty much the same, this might be overkill, but I'm assuming that having extra blankets will be useful.

a finished blanket

a stack of four finished blankets