Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Guy Gift, Camo Blanket

Today’s project was an Easter gift for my husband. And, if we are getting all technical and honest; it was supposed to be a Christmas gift. Oops.

The week before Thanksgiving hubby was dropping hints vividly describing a blanket that would be “so cool.” And whining because, “Nobody makes me anything.”

Determined to be the best wife in the world I ventured to JoAnn Fabric. The weekend after Thanksgiving.

I knew better. I have been there on that crazy weekend before. I had vowed to myself and anyone listening that I would never step foot in that store Thanksgiving weekend for as long as I shall live.

But fleece was on sale….and hubby wanted a fleece blanket.Specifically a camo fleece blanket, with our last name and school in our school colors. He was even dreaming of using this blanket at football games. It went a little like this, “Hey man, that’s a cool blanket.” He had planned on replying, “Thanks, can you believe my wife made it?”

Long story short, Christmas rolled around, and I still hadn’t touched the fleece. But then while making these Easter gifts for the older kids, I thought, “I can use this same method for Bri’s blanket.”

And so I did.

Camo School Spirit

*So sorry I didn’t take any process photos. Here’s a short summary though:

First I found a font I liked, and printed it at the largest size possible. Then I traced the letters onto fusible web. *Remember to reverse the image, either when printing or while tracing.

Next I ironed the letters onto the colored fleece. Cut out the letters (this is pretty time consuming, thankfully we have a short last name and school initials). Arrange the letters onto the top layer of fleece and iron in place. *You may want to stick with a few pins also. The fusible web doesn’t adhere to fleece very well.

Once you have the letters in place, slow down the speed of your machine. Zigzag around the letters. I choose to use contrasting thread (red thread for blue letters, and blue thread for red letters).

camo4

Almost done! The last step is to bind the blanket. I used this method. Not my favorite method for a blanket this size. The corners ended up a bit wonky for my taste. Next time I’ll try the method I used here.

camo2

*IMPORTANT: Before you put another project under the needle, clean your sewing machine! Fleece tends to produce a ton of lint. Nothing’s worse than having your next project get tangled up in the sewing machine.

Are any of you die hard Black Friday shoppers? Personally, the thought of stepping into a store that weekend sends fits of anxiety through my body. As always, I love to read your thoughts!

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