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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Receiving Blanket

When my children were babies I made my own receiving blankets. They weren't any cheaper to make, but they were thicker, larger, and I liked them perfectly square....better for swaddling a newborn. Now I make them as gifts for new babies in the family.

I start by cutting a 40 - 42" square of heavy flannel.

Then I round the corners with whatever is handy...... a small dish usually has the right curve. Taking the time to curve the corners really helps later when doing the machine stitching....no tight corners to navigate!

I fold the blanket into quarters and cut all 4 corners at once with a rotary cutter so that they match. Then I stitch all the way around using a simple scallop stitch standard on many basic sewing machines.

Then I trim away the excess for a neat, no fray edge. On this particular receiving blanket I added a small heart of handwoven fabric so that it would match the heavier blanket it was meant to coordinate with.

Sorry, no finished photo of this. I gave the blanket away before getting a picture.

6 comments:

old lady said...

What a lovely idea! For us sewing impaired - how exactly did you trim away the excess after the scalloping??
Thanks for sharing!

Maggie Ann said...

This is beautiful! And once, again, I love it when people give the 'how to'. Thank you for sharing this.

Marlene said...

I just trimmed around the scallops with sharp scissors. You trim close, but don't have to get too ridiculously close as the first laundering kind of "plumps" the remaining bits back to the stitching line.

Anonymous said...

Memories...of brushing some supersoft flannel on my crawling baby's cheek, going to sew it into what would become her favorite blanket (she still has it at 22) and as I sewed, finding it tugging away from the sewing machine needle: she'd gotten under my chair and wanted it now.

old lady said...

Thanks for sharing that tip!

Jane said...

This is a lovely idea. I can imagine that they are very welcome