Simple Rosette Blanket

My sister and my awesome soldier brother-in-law will be welcoming their first baby in the next month! The last time Alison was home, friends and family celebrated with a baby shower and I was a little stumped at first as to what to shower my sister with.

Natalie and Michaela Byrd wanted to get her a puppy, but that was out of the question.

We were perusing the aisles at JoAnn Fabric one day when I spotted the deliciously soft nursery fabrics and knew I wanted to try my hand at making a baby blanket. Baby Girl's crib bedding has some lilac-y purple and soft green in it, so I chose two soft fabrics with that nice lilac color.

Two yards seemed like an awful lot of fabric for one tiny baby girl, so I believe I went with a yard of each fabric, perhaps a yard and a half. Washing beforehand is a must, but I hate the way the fabric tends to shred on the ends, even when washed on a delicate cycle.

First, I laid my fabrics out on my cutting mat, trimmed off the shredded edges, and then evened them all up so that they'd make the same size rectanglish shape when stuck together.

I used excess fabric to make some soft rosettes, following Amanda's easy tutorial over at Imperfectly Beautiful. The only thing I changed was that I hand stitched the rosettes as I worked, using about 478 stitches in each one to ensure that they wouldn't unravel and choke Baby Girl. Baby blankets tend to need washing, and I wasn't sure hot glue would last through the spin cycle.

The rosette part was time consuming, but I got to catch up on some DVR'd shows while I worked. You can't go wrong with that.

Once my rosettes were complete, I laid them out on the right side of the fabric rectangle that coordinated best, and hand stitched them in place. Then I laid my two fabric rectangles together with wrong sides facing out, pinned them in place, and machine stitched the rectangles together. I left a small opening to turn the entire thing inside out, used a capped pen to poke the corners out, and hand stitched the opening together using a very ghetto method that I am sure sewing teachers everywhere would cringe at.

Final product?

All wrapped up in the gift basket:

Easy peasy! If you have a coupon, fabric can be relatively inexpensive and if you can sew straight lines, you'll find this a very simple project. Using more yardage would enable you to make a lovie for a toddler or preschooler.

Check in tomorrow to see a project for making lovely button hair clips, and come back Thursday for a special Giveaway from The Shabby Chic Cottage!

Linking to The CSI Project for their weekly challenge.

Happy Crafting!