Finished the Blanket

The last couple posts have told you that I am making my (not so little--he'll be 17!) brother a blanket for his birthday. This blanket was much more work than the one I made him last year but I also had a sewing machine this year. Last year's is all hand sewn.

This blanket has one side of two fleece panels (the orange and grey side) and the other side with four flannel panels (I consider this the top and the fleece is the back). It has a wide cotton binding on it. This was my first ever binding! I also did some decorative top stitching so when he washes it, the fabric doesn't shift.

For the binding, I somehow miscalculated how much I'd need so now I have extra. I used a 3 inch strip. Then I ironed the whole thing, folded it in half and starched and ironed it again. I was then going to fold up the raw edges a half inch for each side but the ironing was already a lot of work because of how long the strip is so I decided to not fold the raw edges and do a big zig zag stitch around the whole thing. I did have to do some places twice because the two sides weren't perfect and the second side didn't get any stitches (if you know what I mean). That was still less work than if I had to do it the other way.

For the panels, I sewed right sides together with a half inch seam allowance. Then when I had finished my top and bottom and everything was cut to the same size, I did a basting stitch around the edge since I knew I'd be binding it.

Then I top stitched it with fancy stitches (which ended up a lot of work since it was in the middle of the blanket, not an edge, so you had to roll up the blanket to fit under the machine and it took us like 3 people to do it right...it was a mess. I wouldn't do it again.)

The finished product is 60 x 72 inches. I wanted it really big but I still have leftover fabric because I was unsure on what size I wanted. This is perfect. It can wrap around you with space to still move your arms and it covers your toes (even David's toes, and he's 6 ft 4 so most blankets are much too short on him). He's already asking if I can make him one for Christmas (he got to test out my brother's).

Here are the pictures!

So the top one is the flannel side and the bottom one is the fleece side. You can't see the decorative stitches very well from these but I was just excited to be done. This was a bigger project than I expected (like most of them are).

Since I am going home for his birthday weekend, I will return to blogging on Monday or Tuesday. Happy Halloween!