Saturday, July 23, 2011

Tag Blanket Tutorial

I'm crazy about this baby!

I made a tag blanket for my grandson. I can't remember if I told you my step-daughter and her husband gave us our first grandchild in November? Well they did and we are having so much fun being grandparents. He has incredible fine motor skills and he loves to play with the tags on his toys. That got me thinking that he might like a tag blanket. They are so easy to make. I made this one with minky. If you are not familiar with minky it is a soft and cuddly machine washable chenille that is perfect for use in baby blankets.

I'm sure there are a million tutorials on this, but here is my version. It will make a 17 inch square blanket not including the ribbons.



First you will need some supplies:
1/2 yard of minky
1/4 yard each of 16 different ribbons
thread
pins
scissors
sewing machine
tweezers (if you use wire ribbon)


If you use wire ribbon you will want to take out the wire. This is so easy. Just use a tweezer to pull out the wire. It should slide right out. Then cut each ribbon into two pieces. Make them all different lengths so that some ribbons are longer than others.

Cut two 18 inch squares out of the minky.


Fold each ribbon in half and pin the raw edge of ribbon to the edge of the right side of one of the pieces of minky. I pinned 8 different ribbons to each side in varying distances apart starting an inch away from the edges. Ribbons should face inside. (see photo above)

Baste the ribbons down using your sewing machine with a 3/8 seam allowance.



Now put right sides together of the minky squares. Pin together making sure ribbons are inside.



Now, using a 1/2 inch seam allowance machine sew together leaving a 4 inch opening for turning.



Clip all edges and corners leaving a 1/4 inch raw edge. Turn right side out.



Pin the 4 inch opening closed tucking in the raw edge.



Top stitch around entire blanket using a 3/8 inch seam allowance.



Then I machine washed and dried the blanket because I know my grandson will try to eat it. Well it does look like candy.

The tutorial can also be found on my sidebar under free patterns.