Whenever we go to a baby shower, we can’t help noticing the home-made gifts that people bring for the couple. Well, no matter what gets us jealous, it surely feels like something to be addressed.
I decided to come up with a solution to our aspirations of making some wonderful home-made blankets for babies, that are both easy to make and do not consume much of our time. Be it crocheting or quilting, you need to practice the art of making a blanket.
You can make a baby blanket from soft fabrics or flannelette, which would definitely put a beautiful smile on a baby’s face. There are various designs for a blanket that you can choose as per your convenience and some of the best are mentioned in this blog. Do read the entire blog and you might get exactly what you are looking for. This is a great opportunity for a beginner who doesn’t have any past experience with fabrics and wants to make a baby blanket for personal use or for gifting purposes.
Moreover, if you follow the procedure, you can make a blanket in as short a time as fifteen minutes. So let’s find out some easy ways to make a baby blanket.
Fabric Required For The Baby Blanket
As mentioned earlier, you can use any soft fabric or flannelette, but you need to make sure that the fabric is breathable and natural so that it feels soft on the baby skin. Also, the temperature of your surroundings can be an indicator of the type of fabric that you might want to use.
If you live in a cold climate, it is better to use a thick fabric like corduroy. On the other hand, if you reside in a hot climate, high-quality muslin fabric would be a great choice for newborn baby blankets.
Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that you are required to pre-wash the fabric before its use so as to remove any chemicals present. Even if it’s natural, the fabric might wrinkle or pucker, so it’s better to wash it beforehand.
Items Required To Make The Blanket
- Two pieces of flannel with 1 yard each, and if you make it bigger, you can take 1/4th yard extra.
- Sewing machine
- Thread for sewing; one of which is to match the top and the other to match the bottom.
- Crochet hook or chopsticks–whichever is available.
- Iron
- Rotary cutter–it’s optional to use.
How To Make A Baby Blanket
Step 1
The first thing that you need to do is to put out the flannel and straighten the edges. You’ll need to ensure that the sizes of the flannel that you use are the same. You might want to use a cutter to straighten the edges. Now, with the print on the inside part, you need to pin the two pieces right sides together.
To personalize your blanket, you may add the name of the baby at one of the corners of the fabric.
Step 2
Stitch the right sides together, all the way, leaving a 0.5 inch seam allowance. Here, you’ll need to leave a gap of 3 inches on one of the straight sides.
Step 3
Use a crochet hook or a chopstick inside of the fabric to put out each of the four corners. Also, don’t forget to iron all the sides of the blanket to get a sharp and crisp edge. Pressing your blanket in between is really important, so make sure you press the fabric in up and down motion, which is different from ironing the fabric.
Step 4
You’ll require to stitch around the edges of your blanket using either a straight stitch or a decorative stitch. If you are willing to go for a decorative stitch, you’ll need to hand stitch the opening side of your blanket first.
If you go for the straight stitch, you’ll just need to sew around the blanket and then sew the opening shut. If you are new to this, I’d recommend you to go for a straight stitch because decorative stitches are tough to line up and you might run out of thread or make a mistake, and you don’t want that to happen!
Step 5
Use zig-zag pattern stitches in between the fabric on different spots. This helps in keeping the blanket fresh and soft after a wash. You can set the zig-zag stitch length to 0.5 and stitch around 8 stitches forward and 8 stitches back.
What If You Don’t Have A Sewing Machine?
Well, in case you do not have a sewing machine, you can always hand-stitch the blanket. Most of the steps here remain the same, but there are some alterations that you’d want to consider when you go for a hand-stitch.
1. You’ll need to sew the blanket with a back-stitch. Backstitching is done by sewing forward and backward at the beginning and end of a seam, on top of the seam stitches, to make sure that the stitching doesn’t remain undone.This is a strong stitch and is also quite easy to learn.
2. In the last step, you’ll be using a top-stitch around the blanket. If you are not comfortable with a back-stitch, you can go for a running stitch which is much easier to operate and is a simple up and down moving stitch.
Other Easy Ideas To Make A Baby Blanket
1. Baby Blanket With A Mitered Border
This blanket has a wide binding along its edges. To give a sharp and lighter look, the corners of the blanket have a mitered look. To get the mitered corners, you’ll need to manipulate the corners when you reach there.
2. Baby Blanket With Ruffle Trims Or Ribbons
You’ll be adding a ruffled fabric strip at the edges of your baby blanket so as to give it a gathered look. Alternatively, what you can do is to add ribbon to the blanket edge, but do make sure that the ribbon is of a good quality so that it lasts long even after multiple washes.
3. Triangle Shaped Swaddle Blanket
It is really easy to swaddle a baby in a blanket which is triangular, and not square or rectangular. You’ll need long arms for the triangle because they are wrapped over the body. Also, you may add a velcro strap to the blanket arms to make the blanket more comfortable.
Amazing Patterns For Sewing A Baby Blanket
1. Cute And Beautiful Bunny Style Blanket
Well, who doesn’t like bunnies and especially kids adore these cute little creatures? You can make bunny ears, an embroidered face and small hands to hold. The process of stitching varies here, for this would be a decorative stitch.
2. Quarter-cut Baby Quilt
If you feel that all the designs that you see normally are boring, you’d want to go for a more advanced design which is still manageable. In this design, beautiful striped squares quilt are outlined in an attractive way.
3. Fleece And Flannel Baby Blanket
There are many out there who love the double sided blanket but still wish to use more than one type of soft fabric in contrast to going for just the fleece. Well, then this pattern is for you. You can use two fabrics and work your way through an immaculate design.
4. Self Binding Receiving Blanket
If you are a beginner, I understand that working with edges can be a little tricky. With this design, you can use two different-sized flannels (1.5 yard and 1.25 yard for front and back side respectively) and a ruler to complete a simple yet attractive design.
5. Burp Cloth Pattern
There are three different styles to this pattern. The first is a one-sided contour, then a two-sided contour, and finally a rectangular style. This design is easy to make and is also less time consuming.
6. Stripy Rag Quilt
If you’ve got a large amount of leftover fabric with you, and you wish to make a blanket, this is what you should be looking at. If you are new at the art of quilting, this is one of the most sought-after ways of getting yourself polished for quilting. It has a unique design with unfinished edges and a slightly purposely worn out quality.
7. Puffy Bubble Quilt
If you like unique designs for a blanket and are also ready to take on some challenge, this one’s for you. It has cool new textures and techniques that you can use to stand out in the crowd.
8. One-hour Triangle Quilt
If you wish to work on some harder patterns and not the old school horizontal and vertical patterns, you might want to try out this blanket definitely. This quilt has a wonderful metallic border with stunning pieces of triangle patchworks.
I hope you have got what you were looking for and have found a few unique and easy designs to make a perfect blanket for your baby, or perhaps to gift it to someone for your next visit to a baby shower.
