Remember the last baby blanket? THE Baby blanket. The one that took forever to make. It might have made me never touch my sewing machine again. But then I found this pattern and how could I not try it!
You will need:
1 1/4 yard cotton fabric
1 1/4 yard Minky fabric
coordinating thread
scissors
sewing machine
I swear its easy you just have to keep some reminders in mind. Minky is not the easiest fabric to sew, so I looked up some tips. And I will be sharing those with you but maybe look up all of them for yourselves just to be safe! O and hey remember that silly little puppy that likes to be a part of all my sewing projects. The exact minute that fabric hit the ground she made it her new home. But she is cute, so I let it slide.
First your going to lay your fabrics out. the bumpy side of the minky up and the pattern side of the cotton down. So that your final fabrics are facing each other. Then pin away! With minky you want to pin as much as possible. Its recommended every 1-1.5 inches apart.
Make sure you leave a couple inches open. I marked mine with two vertical pins. This is where you will be turning your blanket once you’ve finished the first round of sewing.
Starting at the bottom vertical pin start your 1/2 inch seam, go the entire way around until you hit your top vertical pin. Make sure to leave that space open! Now you can trim and cut your corners. Then turn your whole blanket inside out and pop those corners all the way out. Then lightly press the blanket, cotton side only, minky does not like to be ironed! Press your edges so you have a clean edge to sew.
Now you can pin that opening closed. I had a slight pull in my minky fabric, remember that I said its a hard fabric to sew. So I’m happy mine was only slight so I also pinned that to try and fix it. Good enough for a first time! Now sew another 1/2 inch seam around your edges. Make sure to back stitch your beginning and end to finish it.
And there you have it! A simple but cozy baby blanket. Who doesn’t love to be curled into a minky blanket. And this one was so simple and easy it only took me one episode of Brothers and Sisters to finish it. That last one took almost 3 seasons worth of episodes! So try it. Show me your results!
And again more fun stuff to come so make sure you’re always checking back with us!
Hello. Thank you for this awesome tutorial. I have never sewn before but am going to try for the first time. Two questions… first, you say to sew another 1/2 inch seam around the edges. Does that mean to sew over the already sewn part? Secondly, you say to make sure to back stitch the beginning and end to finish it? Can you please explain what this means to me. Thank you so much, lovely. 🙂
Hi Natasha.
This one is super easy. Although minky is sometimes tricky to work with so go slow and steady! I like to sew a second seam after I’ve flipped it. To give it a stronger edge. So you will sew the two fabrics together. And then turn it inside out. And after that, sew it at 1/2 and inch in from the edge and just go all along the edge.
To back stitch means to go forward on your machine and then flip it in reverse and go back over the 1-2 I inches you just sewed. And then go back over it again and sew the rest. It just helps really strongly set the thread so it doesn’t pull out and unravel.
Hope that helps and goodluck!