Okay so I went all out on this one (sort of) and made a quilt-batting and tied it too! Went to the fabric store (good ol’ Joann’s) and bought 2 pieces of matching flannel, batting, yarn, thread, needles, bobbins, and whatever else I needed. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the pattern on the flannel at first-but it was the best I could find there for a new little baby boy! After I got it all done though-I think it turned out cute. I’ve never made any sort of blanket before. It took me probably twice as long as it should have but I learned a lot and and happy with the overall result. Just don’t look too closely at it Molly-because it is very homemade and far from perfect!
Things I’ve learned on this project:
* Buy enough fabric for all the batting! I wasted about 5” of batting because it was that much longer than the fabric. (Okay, so I’m putting it in my scraps just in case it has a future)
* I need to find a way to be able to cut the sides closer to 100% straight before sewing
* After I sew it-check for pins before turning, then check a 2nd time and even a 3rd! Yes, I left a pin. I used the kind with really big round heads so I could easily find them. You can tell how well that worked. I didn’t find the pin until after I had sewn the hole together from flipping it, so the pin was stuck on the inside. I ended up taking the wire cutters and cutting the whole pin part off-leaving the giant round head inside. Oops! I’ll say its for luck.
* Don’t try to make my machine sew the hole shut after flipping…It was trying to sew through 4 layers of flannel and batting too. I unpicked a few stitches and untied a bunch of knots after that one. It was much easier to just hand stitch the hole closed…
* BE MORE CAREFUL about making sure my pretty boarder is STRAIGHT! Just don’t look too close :)
* I need a little rubber square like my mom had for gripping the quilting needle when tying the quilt. I finally made more use of the wire cutter/needle noses to assist me in pulling the needle through the fabric. Almost at the end though I gripped too close to the eye and broke my needle! Dang!
* As learned in the last part-when using pliers to grip the quilting needle-don’t grab the eye!!
* And make sure I have spare needles-good thing I got the multi -package!
* my cheapo sewing scissors are sharper than I thought! I have a missing chunk in my finger to prove it…which leads to the next thing I learned…
* Pay attention and be careful when trimming the yarn after I finish tying…It’s easy to about cut off my finger.
* And…make sure I have a few Band-Aids handy – we don’t want any of my blood on the blanket!!
* And finally-it’s never too early to start a baby blanket. Here I was thinking I had a couple weeks before the baby was coming and we find out today he’s probably going to be here this week! Hope she gets the blanket in time :)
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