A new life

Earlier in the week my mother informed me that she had volunteered me to make a baby blanket for the daughter of my their friend. Jennifer (their daughter) is due with a baby late this year. Mrs. Gordon had what was left of her baby blanket, and wanted to turn it into a blanket for her, but has been away from her sewing machine for many years. 

All that was left of the blanket was a very thin piece of fabric. I ironed it to a piece of fusible fleece. The top 2 corners were rounded, and if I had squared them up, I would have lost a lot of the blanket. So, I rounded the 2 lower corners as well. From there I had backed myself into a corner. I had no idea how to add a border with rounded corners. I tried, and I failed. I spent some quality time with my seam ripper. 

The only thing I could think of next, was to bind the top. I had already picked out some fabric for a border, and the back, so I had to dig into my stash to see what I could come up with. I found these fun Amy Butler green dots. I made a small binding. Then what? I had no idea. I still wanted to make some sort of border for it. I had already wasted over half of the fabric I had intended to use for the border with my first trial. I cut up what was left, but didn't have enough for what I wanted it for. Instead I decided to ruffle it. At first I tried the typical method with a basting stitch, but in the end, it was easier just to fold and pin. After that I cut up more of the dots and made a "frame" I stitched the frame to the back of what was now the blanket, then I cut the excess of the back. Mrs. Gordon had picked out a silky purple she was going to use for the back, but I had found a sweet green/purple/blue dot that I thought worked better. So I cut up the purple silky and ruffled that for the border. I then made an inside out sandwich, left 6" or 8" open to flip it right side out, and sewed. 

That purple stuff was miserable to sew with, it frayed just by looking at it, slipped out of the sandwich no matter how many pins I put it, and wrinkles under the iron. But I think the second ruffle adds a lot, and the silky bit is nice and soft for little hands. Although, the blanket is for Jennifer, not for the baby. Turns out the baby is a boy anyway, and this blanket is plenty girlie. After quite a bit of cursing, I'm pleased with the final product. The pictures don't quite show the blanket off. The print on the original is very faint, but in person you can see it. It also is a bit wrinkly from the fusible fleece.  

Oh, I almost forgot. There was a rip in the lower left corner. Even after I had rounded the corner off it was still there. I didnt want to cut the blanket down any smaller than it was. I appliqued a small circle with a "J" in the center. I think it fits in nicely.