Snuggly busyfingers blanket

Hi all,

I’ve been up to a lot lately, and had sort of a hard time deciding where to start. Since it seems like half of my friends are either pregnant or new parents, it seems most appropriate to start with my current favorite gift.

When we had Ada’s shower, my superduperawesome friend Carly gave us an adorable blanket of her own making; a cute flannel owl print on one side, and a snuggly super-soft plush fabric on the other. It’s Ada’s favorite, and she drags it all over the place (sometimes draped over her shoulders like a cape). I thought that would be the perfect thing to pass on to a new parent, but I wanted to add my own twist.

When Ada was tiny (it seems like a lot more than a year has passed since then), she always seemed to like the tags on her plush toys better than the toys themselves! If one tag is entertaining, wouldn’t a lot more be even better? I had been tossing around the idea of making a tag-covered toy for a while, and with that in mind, thought I’d apply it to a blanket. I missed the boat with Ada, as she’s not so easily entertained anymore, but this should keep another little one busy for quite a while.

So, here’s my materials list:
1 yard flannel fabric (prewashed – ALWAYS prewashed)
1 yard super-plush minky, chenille, or something else soft (again, wash it first)
a bunch of bits of ribbon, twill tape, bias tape, ric rac, webbing, etc. (think TEXTURE and COLOR)
thread

I cut a 30×37″ piece of each fabric (a funny size, I know, but it let me get two blankets out of the super-plush, and that stuff is not cheap), laid them out with the right sides together, then pinned around three sides of it. When I got to the fourth side (I picked one of the short sides), I pinned a bunch of loops of ribbon and other trims to the flannel like this:

Make the loops about half an inch longer (folded length – if you’re pre-cutting your ribbon, then make it an inch longer total length) than you want them to be in the finished product (remember you need to account for your seam allowance). Pin the fluffy stuff down over them.

Stitch around the edges of the blanket using a 1/2″ seam allowance and leaving about a five-inch gap along one of the unribboned sides. You’ll need this to turn the blanket right-side out.

Reach in and turn the blanket right-side out. Iron it to flatten the edges (and to set the edge on the unstitched area where you turned the blanket). Topstitch around the edges of the blanket about 1/4″ in from the original seam. No pictures of these steps – they’re pretty straightforward.

Now, pick a few points in your blanket to anchor the two layers together. I was using white thread here, so I looked for some white areas where the thread wouldn’t show.

Pin your top layer and bottom layer together at those points.

Put a bar tack (set your machine to zigzag stitch, stitch width at the widest setting, and stitch length to zero, then stitch 10 or 11 times) at each anchor point.

And there you have it! One supercute, snuggly busyfingers blanket to share with someone you love.

Can’t wait to meet the little man I made this for. Hope he likes it!