Blog With Friends- Spring Fever Edition!

Seven bloggers have gotten together to bring you 7 projects and ideas to help us look forward to spring coming very soon. Be sure to check out everyone's links at the end of this post. We've got some great posts!

Let me start by saying that this blanket changed many times...then went back to my original plan. I wanted something that would last a long time, but something pretty as well.

I had this blanket when I was a baby that a friend of my mom's made. It was very simple: two pieces of cotton fabric with a receiving blanket in between them. It was all sewn together and then the maker used yarn throughout to hold it all together.

The original blanket is the quilt-like one under that beautiful baby boy. It wasn't quilted; the fabric was just patterned that way.

That blanket lasted so long that I was using it for Clone of Bob when he was a baby...it disappeared when he was about 6 months old and I'm still miffed about it. That blanket was in such good shape (despite me using it for my dolls when I was little) that my grandchildren could have used it. Anyway...

I have a Great-Niece coming...this is a new concept to me. It's hard to believe that this spring there will be 5 generations alive in Bob's family. In my opinion, this is special. So, I wanted to make a special gift. Here's what I did (in the end...I won't show all the trials and errors...I promise, it'll look easy).

My mother-in-law gave me this beautiful butterfly fabric to use for Boo, but I never got around to using it. I figured it was a perfect pattern for a baby.

Materials:
Fabric: you'll need three pieces all together, all the same size

• Fabric A for front (size depends on how big you want it)
• Fabric B for back
• Flannel or a receiving blanket for the inside. 

A little bit of yarn
Sewing machine and thread
Tapestry needle

Instructions:
First, I washed and dried the pieces of fabric to pre-shrink them and make sure they were clean. Then I ironed them the best I could. They didn't need to be perfect, but didn't want any major creases.

Then I made sure all three pieces were close in size. Of course this wasn't exactly easy and had to do some trimming along the way.

I put the right sides of the front and back pieces together and then the flannel piece on top of that.

I sewed two of the edges then pinned it all as flat as possible. This was so that when I sewed the other two sides, I have everything flat and in place.

The pics don't show the pins very well, but they're there.

The next step was to sew the other two sides, but I left a good size hole in one end so I could turn the piece right-side-out.

I made sure to trim the edges as close to the seam as I felt comfortable with. I didn't want too much bulk at the edges.

Then I turned it right-side-out and went over the whole outside edge with a decorative stitch (making sure to carefully sew the hole closed). Well, the most decorative my machine had (and Bob said there was no need to buy the more expensive model because I'd probably never use the decorative stitches...oh well.). If you don't have decorative stitches, no problem. A zig-zag would work just fine. 

I used pink thread because I wanted the stitching to be seen.

One of the last steps was to measure the final piece (mine was 30" x 38") and figure out an evenly spaced grid pattern. I had 5 down the long way and 4 across the short way. I'm not sure that I'm explaining this right, but I'm not sure how to explain it better.

I pencil marked and pinned each spot. That way I knew where to put my yarn. 

For my blanket the top was the butterfly print and the bottom was the yellow. I got a tapestry needle (or any needle with a point that has an eye big enough for yarn) and used purple yarn to complement the purple in the fabric. I went into the fabric from the top and then back up from the bottom and tied a small knot. I made sure to double knot each piece of yarn. Then I cut the pieces about 3/4 of an inch in length. 

Then I washed and dried the blanket so that the pieces of yarn would fuzz.

They will fuzz more as it gets used and washed and dried some more. The purpose of the yarn is to hold it all together so that the pieces don't slide or anything. If you look carefully at the pic of the original blanket, you'll see that the maker used green yarn. None of it fell out or came untied over the 20+ years that I had it.

And, now my great-niece will have a blanket that, hopefully, will be able to be used for generations.

Now for the other bloggers' great posts!

Karen at Baking in a Tornado made a White Brownie Parfait to welcome spring with fresh berries in a white brownie parfait.

Stacy at Stacy Sews and Schools is giving us a tutorial for a Splish Splash Rain Cape.

Robin at Someone Else's Genius is giving us a jewelry-making tutorial, making Faux Terrarium Earrings.

Lydia at Cluttered Genius is going to show us Spring Cleaning with Essential Oils.

Melissa at Home on Deranged is showing us how to get gardening help from our phone with these Springtime Gardening Apps.

And Christy Garrett at Uplifting Families show us ideas for Non-Candy Easter Basket Ideas.

An InLinkz Link-up