Creating a Baby Blanket

I was recently looking at some craft magazines and books and I found loads of ideas of creating a baby blanket.  Making, recycling and creating is all the rage at the moment and it’s a great time to get stuck into learning a new craft.  There are loads of groups and website that can help you and give ideas.

One of the things I saw which really appealed to me was a quilted bedspread, you can cut  out squares of bits of fabric that you love with a theme of colour or design and sew them together.  Then put together with wadding and backing fabric looks beautiful.  You can also do shapes of animals, hearts or stars, whatever you fancy and appliqué them onto some of the squares.  It could make a beautiful thing to keep or give as a gift.  If you have collected fabric over the years, it’s a great way to use it up and it can be a quilt of memories especially if you use old clothing or curtains.  You need to make sure the fabric is similar thickness and wash it first in case it shrinks.

If you want a less complicated project you can buy a fleece baby blanket and appliqué shapes onto it to personalise it.  You could also edge it with blanket stitch to tie in with the colours of the appliqué and if you wanted to personalize it to the baby you could embroider their name on to it.  If you don’t want to spend too much money on fabric. always go and have a look at your local market first.

If knitting or crochet appeals to you more, you could create a baby blanket easily in this way as it is essentially a square or rectangle of material.  If you want to break it down, you could knit or crochet squares and then sew them together into a patchwork effect.   

If you fancy having a go at a craft and you have never done it before, you could start with something really small and easy like a pin cushion or lavender bag.  You can then progress up to a cushion and then when you feel confident you can embark on a much larger project.  You have to accept that these take a long time and you can’t complete them in a day, but they are great to have as a long term project.  I find them great things to do while you are watching TV, on holiday, or other free time when you can chat and sew at the same time.  Baby blankets are a great way to start because although they are a large project, they are much smaller than starting on an single or double bed size bed spread.

I hope you give learning a new craft a go and learn new skill soon, it is something you will always be able to use and it is really satisfying to create something yourself.  Happy baby blanket making!