Reindeer Blanket

I've had a lot of feedback about the little reindeer blanket I made for John.

You need to know, that I am not an accomplished seamstress, but I can go slow and get it done. That being said, the skills I learned as a girl come back to me quickly, and it reminds me everytime how important it is to me that girls be given this opportunity to get behind a sewing machine and learn the basics.

I am generally a traditionalist. I like my Christmas colors in the good old-fashioned reds, greens, burgundies. When I decided to make this holiday blanket I looked everywhere at the 'traditionals' and nothing was satisfying me.

I decided to just 'look' at the trendy fabrics, and fell in love with this. MY dilemna was how to back it. Do I use some shade of this 'new' Christmas green? Red? White? Brown was not my first choice. The methodical me (haha!) had to lay them all out on Joann's cutting tables and put together every possibility. (By now, Lisa is rolling her eyes...Yes, I can see you.)

The brown made the reindeer 'pop' and there I had decided. Nothing traditional about this at all, but it's working!

With that out of the way, here are some pictures. My camera didn't really capture the brightness of the fabric, so go to http://duffydoings.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post_4302.html (I just wanted to type the word 'here' and be able to go to the link. How do I do that???) to see the true fabric color.

I used super jumbo rick rack. It kind of fits in with the current style.

Wash and dry the fabric. I get 1 1/2 yards of each. I like to make them around 44-45" by 44-45-50". This should leave enough leftover fabric for a burpcloth. But you can make it any size you want!

I trim all the frayed edges, lay the fabrics on top of each other matching all edges and cut to the size I want. Then I take a salad plate and put it on the corners and trace the rounded shape on the material. Trim the square off. I like the softness of the round corner, plus it makes putting the rick rack trim on easier.

With the right side up of your print, sew the rick rack on. If you are using jumbo, lay one edge of the rick rack points on the fabric edge and stitch 1/4 inch in around it. If you use super jumbo, you need to let it hang off the raw fabric edge about 1/8" and then sew 1/4" around.

With right sides together, fit and pin both fabrics together. Stitch 1/2 -5/8 " seam allowance all the way around, leaving a 5" opening to turn it right side out.

Turn the blanket right side out. Pull out rick rack points. Press seam and rick rack, pressing the opening as if it were stitched. Top stitch 1/4" from seam edge, including opening. (This will close it.)

The finished blanket.

Another view.

I didn't put rick rack on the burp cloth. I just used a kidney shape, wrong sides together, stitched a 1/4 inch and then another 1/4 inch from it (2 rows of stitching), and then cut the raw edges about 1/4 inch just up to the first row of stitching. I dampened it and then put it in the dryer and it looks like a cousin to those frayed, ragged quilts. Nice and soft with a bit of a frayed edge. I've never done that before, but I saw it and thought I'd try it out. I don't know how the frayed edges will last, but we'll try it out. I liked the softness of it against a baby's face.

There you go.
If you have any questions, leave me a comment, or email me.