I'm Crafty!

I really wish that were true. I've tried, I swear I have, but I'm just not that good at it.

I would love to sew, knit, crochet, CREATE anything, but alas, I'm not exactly good at it.

A couple months ago I tried to teach myself to crochet. Yeah, that didn't work out so well and now I have a huge bag of yarn and supplies in my basement.

Then I bought a bunch of supplies to try to make Rosemary hair bows and hair clips and they turned out... OK, I suppose. I got bored with it after the first batch though.

I'd love to learn how to sew, but I don't have a sewing machine and purchasing one doesn't really make sense as I'm not exactly Martha Stewart. My husband thinks it would be a waste of money and it's a hard argument to win when I know he very well may be right. I'm looking into borrowing one, so perhaps one day I can create cute little pillow case dresses and felt toys for Rosemary.

WELL until then, I actually found something I can make for Rosemary!

I'm SO proud you guys! This is huge for me to have actually gotten this right! :)

Last month I saw on a blog how someone made one of those fleece, no sew blankets for their child and I thought - hey, I can do that, right? RIGHT!

When I finally got around to making the trip to Joann's I couldn't find the blog link I'd saved anymore, but luckily its easy to google no sew fleece blanket. :)

I used these two sites as references, All Kinds of Baby Stuff and Exploring WomanHood.

They pretty much have the same instructions, so either one would work if you're interested in doing this yourself.

Supplies Needed:

Sharp scissors - And I mean sharp! I learned the hard way meat scissors are excellent for this

Ruler or tape measure - I used a tape measure myself

Two coordinating pieces of fleece - You choose the size. I wanted a large one to throw on the ground in the living room for Rosemary to crawl all over so I went with 2 yards of each

Directions:

1. Lay your two pieces down and make sure they are approximately the same size. Mine were not cut right at the store so I had some trimming to do on all four sides.



This part actually took the most time as I was using dull scissors at first. Once I switched to the good scissors, that helped a LOT.

2. Lay your fleece wrong sides together, with edges matching up - I pinned the layers together so it didn't move around all that much.

3. Cut a 4x4" square out of each corner (through both layers of fleece) and discard. If you want your fringe longer (not recommended for a baby or toddler), make your square bigger.



If you make the picture larger you can see I actually used bobby pins to hold it together.

3. Cut all 4" into fleece at 1" intervals around all four sides. I used the tape measure to measure that it was approximately 4" by 1" as I went around the entire blanket and cut all the 4" strips.

4. Tie the strips together. I double knotted to make sure they were extra secure. I went around the entire blanket and did every other strip first. I then turned the blanket over and did the others so it made the strips appear more even.



My finished blanket for Rosemary!



A close up of the cute fabric I chose.

These are pretty rough directions, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

I'm not going to lie, it was actually harder than I though it would be. BUT, I love how it turned out! To do the full 2 yard blanket it took me about 2.5 hours of straight labor, and it was a lot of work! I do think it would be a lot easier to do the smaller ones.

So, yeah... I'm totally crafty now! :)

Good luck if you decide to make one! Takes a little time, but overall pretty simple.

I do want to point out that this type of blanket is not intended to be given to an infant. It's not safe, especially in a crib or for sleeping. For now I'm only using it on the ground so I feel OK with Rosemary using it.