A Polar Fleece Baby Blanket

My friend Charlotte is having her first baby soon and I've been thinking about what I could give her to help welcome the new bundle of joy. Last week I headed out to check out all her registry items. Apparently the nursery theme is going to be the new Zanzibar jungle theme. Lots of safari animals!

In order to work within my budget I needed to be a bit creative, so during a trip to the fabric store I found some polar fleece on sale for $4/metre. I took a swatch home to see if it matched the colors in the jungle theme and it did. So I decided to make a polar fleece tie blanket. The fleece was plain and needed dressing up so I looked online a found a really cute giraffe pattern that I could use as an applique'.

I rounded up all the materials - green fleece, giraffe looking material, steam a seam to mount the applique...which totalled $12.00!! Perfect. Friday night I pulled out my rotary cutter and began the fun.

Now since I had never made one of these little blankets before I checked out some online instructions which overall were pretty simple.

By the way, I met my neighbor from across the street at the fabric store and she just happened to be making the same type of blankets for her family! I thought that was really neat.

I layed out the fleece and used my rotary cutter to trim the edges and make them even all the way around, cutting off the selvage as well.
(Click on any photo to see detail.)








Then I began cutting out the giraffes and tried to decide just how I wanted them placed. I chose to put three on each end, a papa giraffe, a mama giraffe, and a baby giraffe to represent their new family addition. Cute, I know.








Using the Steam A Seam I ironed on the giraffes and zigzagged around the edges to help keep them in place. I hurried a little so the edges are not as perfect as I would like, but this is where my Flylady training comes in and I just couldn't obsess about this.










Then I lined up the two pieces of fleece, wrong sides together and cut out 4 inch squares from each corner in order to make room when the tying began.








Next I began cutting 1 inch strips, 4 inches long with my rotary cutter to make a fringe all the way around. I just tied each top fringe to the bottom fringe in a square knot all the way around the blanket and I was finished!

I also wanted to add a few treats for the new mother-to-be. Recently I was browsing in a store that was closing out and I found this really sweet mug for moms. The message says...

"A mother's smile can brighten any moment,
and a simple hug can put joy in your day.
A mother's love will stay with you forever,
and touch your life in every way."

And since who doesn't love chocolate, I filled the mug with some awesome truffles and wrapped it up in cellophane and ribbon. We're also including a book for the dad on leadership and the whole gift is going in a lined basket, wrapped up in cellophane.










This was a fun activity and I can't wait to deliver these treats to the parents-to-be later this week! Aren't babies fun?

Blessings,
Jessica