Baby Blanket

My friend was having a baby shower to celebrate her first baby (due in 3 days!!!) and I decided that I wanted to make her something special that no one else would give her. I decided to make her a unique baby blanket.

I can give you instructions for how to make this as I did not copy the pattern from anyone else :o) 

1. Firstly, I purchased this Noah's Ark Panel from my local fabric shop. It was £11.99. I usually buy fabrics online as it is much cheaper but I needed it done quickly. Alternatively, you could use lots of spare pieces of fabric and sew them together to make a patchwork quilt.
2. I also purchased a mtr of Poly-Cotton which goes at the back of the blanket (the light green).
3. Finally, I purchased some Wadding, which is the soft stuff that goes in between the two layers. I got the thickest one as I wanted it to be nice and warm for the baby.
4. Once home, I  cut the poly-cotton fabric so that it was just big enough to fit behind the panel and fold over to provide an edge. Be aware you need to leave extra fabric to fit around the wadding too.
5. Once I had done that I put all the layers together to ensure they fitted together nicely.
6. I then pinned around the edge of the blanket to keep it all together while I sewed it on the machine.
7. After I did that I decided that I wanted to create a patchwork effect by sewing squares on the blanket. I also wanted to make sure that all the layers were secure and that the wadding wasn't going to move around in the blanket with a wriggly baby under it. This is the part that I found most difficult. I decided to just sew onto the squares that you can see around the edge of the picture. They already looked like patchwork so I wanted to finish the effect off by sewing down each line.
8. To finish it off I hand sewed my own design moto onto the back (Love Lorna) using white fabric and red cotton so that they knew it was handmade by me.

They were very pleased with the final result ! I have had many request put in for baby blankets now. Best get to it!