Quick and Easy Baby Blanket

My family had some wonderful news on Thursday, we learned that my oldest son Travis, and his wife Christa are going to have a baby girl! This will be their first and is such exciting news, and from this Nana's perspective it is news that is long overdue!! LOL She should be arriving to meet us all on or around June 11th. I can hardly wait!

She is going to be a little doll, already is, you can see her sucking her thumb. How darling is that?  Precious little baby girl!

Well with all this excitement, I was just itching to make her something.  I was going to make a bib, then I remembered I had bought some flannel thinking I would make the grands some pjs or sleep shirts.  Well guess what, that flannel is now a baby blanket!  I kept to my resolution about using some of my stash before buying any more fabric too! ( well sorta, I did purchase some for a sew along I am participating in, but I didn't have any of the type of fabric that the project calls for, so that really doesn't count...right?).

The flannel is really cute, mostly green with little turtle families on it and then a solid green, that I used to face it.  I really wanted to finish it with some sort of binding, but I had nothing in my ready made stash and really no coordinating fabric to make any, so I just used what I had, my sewing machine, and thread!

I first cut my fabric to 45 by 36.  You could make it to what ever size you wish, but this was a large as I could get with the fabric I had on hand.  With right sides together I sewed all along the edges using a 1/2 inch seam allowance and leaving a space about 5 inches long on one side for turning.   I then pressed it flat along all sides and then pressed along all the sides again, this time pressing the seam open. ( I find pressing the seam open allows for a sharper edge along the sides after turning and pressing.)  As I pressed the seam open I turned down the sides of the 5 inch opening 1/2 inch and pressed into place. Before turning, I trimmed off a diagonal edge at each corner, making the corners easier to turn and come to a good point.

After turning I pressed all the way around making sure the edges came to a crisp edge and that the corners were sharp.  Then the fun part started!  I chose a decorative edging stitch (little hearts) and stitched all away around taking care to catch the seam allowance on the inside of the blanket to help keep it in place, this stitiching will also permantly close the five inch opening I left for turning.  Ta Da, a perfect little crib blanket for a perfect little girl!

Start to finish this project was complete in less than 2 1/2 hours.  It was fun, quick and is ready to greet a special little baby girl!

Happy Sewing!