Quick and Snuggly Baby Blanket

We make a lot of baby blankets around here. We love to visit the new mommies in the neighborhood and give them a little blanket for their newborn. It's a wonderful way to get to visit with people, and best of all... we get to see and hold the new wee ones!

I've gone through a few different versions of baby blankets, and I think I've found the one that we'll stick with. It's cozy, soft and simple. And it's warm, but still easy to fit into a diaper bag. Sometimes those big puffy quilts are just a little hard to pack around with you.

Basically, to make these baby blankets, you will start with a yard and a half of a cute printed cotton fabric. And also a yard and a half of a coordinating minky fabric. Wash and dry both pieces of fabric first. Very important to pre-shrink so that you don't have any of that happening afterwards. The two pieces of fabric will likely shrink at different rates, so that would make for a mess of a blanket if you didn't pre-shrink. After the fabric has been washed and dried, square up the cotton fabric so that the edges are all nice and straight and square. Lay the cotton fabric on a large flat surface, with the right side (print-side) facing down. Take your piece of minky, and lay it on top of the cotton fabric, right side up. Try to get one of the straight, factory edges of the minky lined up with at least one of the edges of the cotton fabric. Because of the usual width of the minky fabrics, you will have a good amount of excess. Smooth the wrinkles in the minky, so it's all nice and smooth. Then, cut the minky 1-1/2" smaller than the cotton fabric, on all sides.

After you've trimmed your minky to size, you will fold all of your cotton edges over the minky.

I fold it once, about 3/4 of the way to the minky, and then fold it once more, over the edge and onto the minky. And then pin. And I mean pin. Pin often, like every 2 inches. I know this sounds like overkill, but minky moves and slips a lot. If you don't pin often, you may have some slippage, and your blanket could be a bit skeewampus (if I can borrow that technical term from my dad).

When it comes to the corners, fold up the corner edge into a little triangle, and then fold up the rest of the edging, just as you've been doing, and continue on down the side of the quilt. Hard to explain, but look at the photo below for an idea of what I'm talking about. And don't forget to pin the corner down well.

And now for the sewing. Use a straight stitch and sew all the way around the fabric, fairly close to the edge of the pinned fabric. Take your time, and keep an eye on your presser foot so that your edge is about the same all the way around.

And voila! You are done. Easy as pie. In fact, I like to make several at a time, assembly-line fashion. It doesn't take that much longer to make more than one.

The possibilities are endless. I always find my pieces of cotton fabric first, and then find a minky to match. There are so many darling fabrics out there... makes it hard to choose!

I like to keep a stack of boys and girls quilts at the ready, so that whenever we have a minute to make a visit, I've got a blanket to take.