Handmade Vintage Baby Blanket DIY

There's something undeniably special about handmade baby blankets. My very talented mother made a blanket for me when I was born and it was something I could never part with.

Growing up, (and somewhat still today) I have been a worrier. My blanket helped bring me the comfort and security I needed to get through those childhood moments when I felt scared or alone. Although I don't remember my blanket going everywhere with me, I do remember sleeping with it every night, taking it on every vacation, and especially bringing it along to slumber parties.

I am now 26 years old and secretly still have my "blanket" in my bedroom closet. It is so worn out you can hardly see the original pink rose bud design on the fabric, and there is a large tare on the front where I use to hide all of my favortie "Pogs" so no one could steal them (tricky right?!?).

I thought it was only appropriate that I make my first daughter a blanket of her own. I designed it to look similar to my original blanket (which is why I used the vintage floral fabric and eyelet trim).

Just for fun, here are a few shots of my own baby blanket...

Click below to get the details on how I made this blanket!




Baby Blanket 
You will need...
2 fabrics of your choice each measuring about 1-1/4 yards square
Cotton batting (made for quilting)
Thread to match fabric
Fabric scissors
Iron
Thick yarn to match fabric
Pins

*I realized as I was making this post that I really shouldn't be labeling this as a DIY project. As many of you know, I am basically a self taught sewer and I have no idea if how I assembled this blanket was the right way or not. Regardless, I decided to post my instructions anyways, and all of you pro-sewers out there can have a good laugh at my methods (and then kindly email me and tell me what you would have done differently :)

First: I cut the batting and fabric to about 1-1/4 yards square. (After I made my cuts, I sandwiched the batting in-between the 2 pieces of fabric and ironed all of the wrinkles out. This helped me to see that everything was indeed cut to the same dimensions). My batting was actually fairly thin, so I used 2 layers.

Then, I folded the fabric and batting under about 1/2" all the way around, creating a nice hem. To hold the hem in place, I ironed it down and then pinned it every 6-8 inches. (Ignore the eyelet in the photo below :)

Next, I inserted my eyelet trim by taking a few pins out at a time, sandwiching the eyelet in-between the fabric, and then re-pinning it together. After I had inserted 1 side of trim in between the fabric, I took the blanket to my sewing machine and sewed the 1 side very close to the edge of the blanket. I sewed the corners of the eyelet by folding over and pinching the trim so that it made a 90 degree turn.

I repeated these steps until all sides of my blanket were sewn. (So basically I took 4 separate trips to the sewing machine.) I wanted to work with 1 side at a time to make sure everything was holding together any lining up correctly :) 

Then I used THIS TUTORIAL - from "Everything Sew," to tie the yarn pieces throughout the blanket. 

And that's it!