Patchwork Baby Blanket

I had planned for this post's title to say "Quilted Baby Blanket", but, it is not in fact quilted. I'm a little scared to try quilting, plus I don't actually have a quilting machine, and didn't include a middle layer of batting, but maybe some day I'll be able to get ahold of a machine to help do the quilt stitching, although adding the layer of batting next time is easy enough, just a duh I didn't think was needed this time.

I simply cut the squares and sewed them together in a visually pleasing manner, and then sewed a soft, minky fabric to the backside for comfyness, and.....voila! A baby blanket!

Anywho, what do y'all think?!

Laying out all the pieces, trying to get  an idea of what looks good and making sure there aren't any repeats on any row or column of the same fabric...

 

Look at those seams!!

 

I mean, LOOK AT THEM!!! So clean, right?! :)

Front stitched to the back, only around the edges though, hence the not-quilted status....

I used the minky fabric you can get at Jo-Ann, but I'm not an expert on how to properly deal with it, aka iron it (or not?), so to get the wrinkles out, I ironed it and that ended up getting rid of the bumps! :(

Like I've said before, I'm not expert by any means, I'm just sharing my experience in learning how to do various crafts and methods, but I'm pretty happy with this blanket!

I just don't quite know what to do with it now..... lol

Craft ya laters!

Loom Knitted Baby Blanket

All the loom knitting I've done so far has been using both sides of my long loom, back and forth, double-sided I guess? Like this one here. One of these days I'll learn the proper terms to better describe what I do for you guys.

Anywho, I have a friend who had a baby boy 2 months ago. I decided to make him a baby blanket, out of that really, really soft "Baby Blanket Yarn", using a new stitch technique. I used the video tutorial here from Loomahat.com to make the blanket, using a stitch that goes around the pegs on the loom, and I used my longest loom. My friend also chose a Monsters, Inc theme for the nursery so when I found this yarn that's mostly white with the soft blue and green bits in there, I couldn't resist!

The results:

I love it!! The pattern that switches back and forth between purling one row, e-stitching the next, is such a pretty pattern and so easy to do!!

Then there's the edges. The way you wrap the outer edge pegs, forms this awesome rope-like edge that just looks so finished. It looks good head-on...

...and from the front!

I had to use 2 skeins of yarn, so there is the inevitable tie-off knot in there, and this is what it looks like up close, but you'd be hard pressed to just see it when you look at the blanket as a whole.

The only truly hard part I had was finishing the darn thing off. I will say, the YouTube video was pretty alright, except when she's showing you how to finish it. She accidentally goes off-camera with her hands and the part of the loom she's working on so it was a little difficult for me to understand (probably mostly with my limited knit and/or crochet skills) what she did if your row gets tight and you need to add an extra stitch here and there. I sort of figured it out towards the middle, but by then, it's really hard to recover and it got tight again, forming this little scallop part. Oh well, mostly it looks just as finished as the first row and the sides, and a friend I showed it to told me that babies like to nibble, so maybe that's what he'll do with the scallop point?

All in all, this blanket took me about 24 solid hours of work, and is 30" by about 38" or so long. I will be sending it out to my friend this week and can't wait to see what he and his fiance say about it! I really hope they like it!!

Now that I know the amount of time and effort that goes into this type of project, I want to start thinking about doing smaller squares and make an afghan for myself to use in the living room when I get cold. That means I'd have to learn the whole stitching-pieces-together thing, but hey, challenges are fun! Right? Right!!

Craft ya laters!!