My almost 5 year old has been obsessed with Angry Birds since he was 3 and when Angry Birds mashed up with Star Wars my son lost his mind. I don't think there is anything he loves more than Angry Bird Star Wars. It's been all he's asked for for the last two Christmas's and Birthdays and any time we see anything related to it while at the store. I was so sure, like most toys, he would tire of Angry Birds and move on but I was very wrong.
When I saw Angry Birds Star Wars flannel at Joann's fabric store I picked it right up for Henry. He's such a good kid and I love surprising him. When my friend volunteered to take him over night a couple of weeks ago so that my husband could take me out of town for my birthday, I wanted to make him the blanket to help him sleep better with out us.
This is the easiest blanket to make.
Because I was in a hurry to get it done to send with him to the sleep over, I skipped a couple of steps. If you are looking to make a lap blanket like I did, and want to do it right from beginning to end, here are the full instructions. *This will hopefully be the first and last tutorial with no step by step pictures.
- Choose 2, 1.5 yard cuts (or smaller if you prefer) of your favorite fabrics. 2 flannels is great and so is a cotton and a flannel or even 2 cottons if you want something really light weight.
- Wash and dry both of your fabrics so that they can shrink up properly. There may be a thread mess you have to cut through after every thing is washed and dried but don't worry, you fabric isn't ruined, you have to trim up the edges anyway.
- Iron out your fabrics and using a temporary fabric spray adhesive, stick them together (*Right sides facing each other! You are sewing this blanket inside out and leaving a hole to turn it right side out.) so they don't shifts for the next 2 steps. Smooth out the fabrics on top of each other while trying to match them up as well as possible. One piece might be wider or longer than the other but thats not a problem.
- Next use a rotary cutter, cutting mat and clear ruler to straighten up all four sides and corners so that the blanket is an even rectangle set some larger pieces of the scrap fabric aside.
- * Before you start sewing, take a scrap piece that you cut from around the edges of both fabrics, place them together and sew a few lines through the fabrics to make sure the tension is good on both the bottom and top. This is especially important if you are using two different kinds of fabrics like a cotton and a flannel. If the tension is off, just adjust a little bit at a time and continue to sew practice lines until you get the right tension.
- Next use a quarter inch presser foot to sew a straight seam around the entire blanket, leaving only a small 5-6 inch hole.
- Next put your hand through that hole and pull your blanket right side out and smooth out the blanket. Fold the raw edges from the hole inwards about 1/4 inch and press with an iron. Then take the iron and press the edges of the blanket all the way around so that it's nice and flat.
- Next use your 1/4 inch presser foot to sew a seam all the way around the blanket to create a boarder. Start with the hole to make sure that those raw edges you folded inward stay put.
That's it!.... unless you want to give it a little bit of a quilted effect. You would just need to use a fabric marker and ruler to mark off a even square grid on the blanket and sew through those marked lines.
No comments:
Post a Comment