I would like to make a blanket for my son for christmas. The problem is I have never made one and I'm short on time, I'd like it to have his name on it as well as a word for each letter (i.e-s is for smart, t is for thankful...etc). Any ideas on what fabrics I should use? My first thought was to use fleece and just cut out each letter and sew them on... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!!
They have those cute DIY fleece blankets that are basically knotted together at most craft and hobby stores. You could get one of those and some embroidery letters and tack them on with simple stitches. Or maybe see if a local photo place can print his name on a blanket using a stencil you design? I know Walmart does personalized photo blankets but maybe a photo place might do something even more personal???
Might be too late for this year, but my wife has made blankets for people using a sheet & favorite t-shirts. buy a sheet (cotton or flannel) that fits his bed. Then pick out old or favorite T's. You can either cut just the front decoration, or use the whole shirt. My wife has done both ways. Just sew the edges of each shirt, or piece, to the sheet, connecting each shirt to the others, like a quilt style. You can use batting in between if you want a heavier blanket using just pieces. No batting is needed if you are using whole shirts.
The age of your son would determine what type of blanket to make. If he is under 5 the fleece might be nice as a cover up. If he is older than the quilt type blanket (made of cotton) would be a keepsake.
If you can contact a quilt shop they might have someone who can give you pointers or ideas on how to make what you are talking about.
Happy crafting and hoildays.
The other S.
PS I have got to get back to my little kids' uniforms.
you are talking about making a quilt, using the early american style, and you dont want to use felt, instead, use a pure cotton sheet as a backing, then you can tack another pure cotton sheet on top of that, using an contrasting or coordinating color scheme, an pure white cotton sheet taking onto a pure white cotton sheet is BORING, then you can cut out the letters of the childs name and sew that on the quilt..pre wash, dry and iron everything before sewing
K. h.
I made my daughter a pillow with her name on it, I bought different fabrics in the scrap bin at Joanns, Hobby Lobby, and Hancock Fabrics and made each letter out of a different fabric on purple fleece. You could do something similar with one of those do-it-yourself tie fleece blankets. I made one of those and it took literally, an hour or so, the most time was spent cutting out the fringe.
Fleece would be the easiest because you won't need to finish the edges, as they won't fray.
You can do the tie blanket with 2 pieces of fleece. You can do a yard and a half, that's pretty good as far as size for a young child. For a older child you can do 2 yards. JoAnn has ready-made kits that already have the fleece pieces cut. However, it costs about the same if you choose the colors and patterns yourself.
I think it would take quite a long time to cut out all those letters, and it would be pretty busy-looking with all that on there.
If I were you, I'd opt for doing a 2 fabric blanket. I would choose a print and a solid. On the solid side I would put his name with the same fabric as the printed side and leave it at that. You could machine sew the letters or hand-sew them. (I often hand sew because I find it relaxing).
Good luck!
Fleece requires very little sewing. If any at all.
We made fleece blankets and just cut 1/2 inch by 3 inch slits all the way around, like fringe. We did this on 2 rectangles of the same size of fleece. Then we tied the 2 pieces of fringe together. It made the blanket twice as thick and if he ever wanted to he could untie it and have 2 blankets.
