Receiving Baby Blanket ~ Flannel Squares

Well I have to apologize right off the bat today. When I was making this quilt I was just trying to get it done before I had to pack it up to move and so the pictures I took were just for me to remember how I made it for future blankets.

I made this blanket during this past summer and have not had time to post about it with the craziness of moving and trying to get settled. But here we are now. Classes have started for my Husband and I am at home with Bentley anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little angel.

But I can not keep it to myself, I LOVE how it turned out and so I wanted everyone to see it, and if you want, to make your own. I sure hope it's my little girls favorite, or at least one of them, she has plenty of hand made blankets from family that love her!!

Since things have calmed down a bit and before they pick up again {my due date is in TWO weeks} I thought now would be a good time to post the baby blanket and list the tutorial. 

The tutorial is going to be a bit long and wordy, especially since I don't have pictures for every step. If something is not clear or if I left something out, be sure to leave me a comment so I fix it.

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First thing is first. You need to pick out your material.

I had picked out this material with a different type of blanket in mind but then changed my mind on what type of blanket to do. To do it as I have my blanket you will need:

Five pieces of flannel, if you get the 44” you will need 25” cut. {It’s always a good idea to get a little bit more} Try as they may, we all know that material does not get cut straight at the cutting table. This will give you a little room to work with when you take it home and lay it out to cut your squares.

Obviously I was not planning on using this as a tutorial so the next step I didn’t take any pictures of but hopefully I can explain it well enough. Leave your material folded and lay it out vertically, one at a time, and cut five {5} inch strips, you should get five {5} strips from each piece of material.

With the strips I squared up the edges by cutting the ends off. Keep your material folded in half {this will help so can cut two squares at a time}, turn it so it is horizontal, and cut out 5” {five inch} squares. By the time you are done cutting all your material you will have 80 squares from each of the five {5} different materials.

 

The hardest part for me was the layout of all the squares. I finally took out a piece of graph paper and sketched out the design. The blanket will be 10 squares by 10 squares.

I went through and ordered the squares from left to right for each row. {This made it easier once I started sewing. I could just pick up the next piece and go, I didn’t have to keep looking back at my pattern.} For the back to turned my graph paper a quarter turn and ordered the squares from right to left {I wanted to try and make the pattern more random and not have the same piece of material for the squares line up on the back that were on the front.}

Now to start all that sewing!! This is where it can get a bit confusing, if I had pictures it would make perfect sense, so I will do my best to explain it.

 

Take the stacks of row one for the front and back. With the first squares from each stack put the two wrong sides together. Now take the second squares from each stack and put them wrong sides together. Now you will stack all four pieces together and sew a straight down one side leaving a ½” {half Inch} seem. Open up and separate the first squares from the second squares. Continue with the third squares from each stack and put them wrong sides together. Place them under second squares from that row and sew on the opposite edge from the first seem {make sure that when they are sewn together, the ½” {half inch} seem is facing the same way as the first one.} By the time you are done with that row you will have 10 squares across.

Follow the same steps to make the next nine rows.

Now you are going to sew the rows together. Make sure to stack row one and row two with the back sides together. Do this for all 10 rows.

I also sewed a ½” {half inch} straight stitch around the outside edges of the blanket to keep the outside squares from opening up. Now you will snip the ½” {half inch} seam allowance from each square to help fray the edges.

Wow, that looks like a lot of work once it is all typed out. You can definitely tell I was not planning on making a tutorial out of this one.

Finally you need to take a pair of scissors and snip all of the ½” {half inch} seams so that it will fray {also trim off the excess thread from sewing all the squares together.} Now all that is left to do is wash it to get all the loose fray off of the blanket.

AND Ta Da!!! A wonderful hand made quilt full of love.

Custom Order to Australia

This was a custom order that I did over the summer. How cool is that, my largest order so far is also my first international order too. She knew exactly what she wanted and was great to work with. Check out all the fun colors she chose for her family. If you would like to make a custom order go to my store {AlwaysBeCreating} and send me a convo.

 

Miller Living Room

A friend of mine asked me to help her with her living room while we were back in town for a bit. Not only was the room fun to do but it was a great excuse to get together.

There were somethings that she really wanted changed and others that we needed to design around. They also just had the fireplace put in and she loved the simple yet sturdy mantel. Her kids are still young so she wanted to keep a play area for the them. The seating was going to be kept too but she did want to get a new stand for her TV. The old one was one of those tall pine or oak ones with the cabinet doors that always had to be open to watch tv. She wanted something with a smaller profile. They had lived there for about 10 years and had the same box valences the whole time, a very floral, formal pattern, so she wanted something a bit more modern. Between the two of us this is what we came up with {I think her husband was happy just to have some change going on}.

They went on a trip for about a week which gave me time to paint. Well I don't think I will paint another room all by myself again, but I do love the colors. She had picked out some colors to go with the tile around the fireplace but we needed a blue that would help mesh with the blue in the valences as well.

Unfortunately for her I started into a 3 month battle with morning sickness that kept me in bed almost the whole time. Sleeping was the best way to get away from always feeling so gross.

Here are the pics. Take a look and let me know what you think.

There is a bay of three windows and we wanted to give the illusion of one big window. The addition of window treatments helped here to hide the brakes. They will also help with the temperature in the room so heat doesn't escape in the winter and the cool air stays inside during the summer.

Paul was my handy man putting the valences up for me and making sure everything fit just right.

The Kids Corner.
Both shelves were laying down so I flipped one up since the kids are tall enough to reach which gave room for the window treatments. The kids corner will be gone in a short time so we weren't going to spend the money on new shelves but with the butter cream window treatments, they don't stand out so much now.

Oh a fun little reading corner.

I love how the fireplace turned out with everything. Nicely framed by a window on each side. The red helps to give a pop of color and tie in the mantel.

This is the piece I am most in love with. We found it at a consignment shop after looking everywhere else. If I wasn't moving all the way across the country and would then have to tote it with me, I would be a bit more jealous. The front had shutter doors on it and I think it would go great in a little girls room. But I think it works fantastic here for the entertainment center. It has a lower profile and while it might be a larger piece it's not over powering in the space. I just love it.

Pauls Graduation Announcement

I love that my husband is graduated now and has the drive to continue on in school. Not going to lie, I'm a bit nervous about moving ALL the way across the country pregnant and having our first so far away from my family and the familiar. But, here's to a great new adventure.

We had some personal info on there so I had to tweak it a little bit to put it out there for everyone to see. But here is Paul's graduation announcement. I love how it turned out and while I might be a little biased, I think he is a pretty handsome guy. He will also be a great dad!!

adam's blankie {SPRING INTO SUMMER 2011} giveaway!

Who doesn't love a giveaway?? Really!!!

Adam's Blankie is doing a Spring Into Summer 2011 Giveaway
and there are some really cute items to be won.

Check it out here and share the love.

A couple of my favorite items would be the wire letter. I would get the first initial for our sweet darling due this October. The only problem is that we haven't been able to settle on a name. I also really like a lot of the jewelry pieces and hair accessories.

I'm back!!!

Well I had something come up that I really was not expecting...morning sickness, and it hit hard and long. Unfortunately I was just starting a huge {it probably seems bigger than it was because of the morning sickness} project for a friend. I didn't want to get out of bed or even eat because I knew how it was all going to end anyways.

Well I'm doing better now and I have finished her project {pictures to come} and am finally feeling up to creating projects again, especially ones for our little one coming in October.

To start off I want to share one of the simple projects I did. It is just a bracelet and earring set made with the birthstones of my husband, the baby in October and me. It was even easier to do because the 'pearl' beads came already assembled in a chain. I got the other two birthstones and attached them in between. Very simple but I love the way it turned out. Kind of like those big chunky cluster bracelets women are wearing these days but without having to be big and chunky.

Check it out ~ I've been featured!!

So a couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from a lady {Jesseca} saying that she wanted to feature me on her blog and was wondering if I would do a giveaway. Well since she was the fist to ask I went ahead and told her I would donate two items for the giveaway. Check out her blog to enter. Good luck everyone!!

I am so stocked about it, I can't wait to see who wins.

AHHH!!