This blanket is for my friend Cathy, over at Sparks Fly. They decided to decorate the nursery in blue and gray with elephants, which I LOVE. I scoured the Internet for good elephant flannel. I had decided that I wanted to do a more typical checkered quilt pattern this time, but trying to decide from online images what blues and patterns would look good together was tricky. Then I came across these pre-cut squares on Etsy. I figured, if they're sold as a set, the colors must go together.
When I got the flannel squares, I laid them all out to make sure I liked the look. I debated a little bit, but ended up going with the classic pattern. I sewed the squares together one at a time into strips across, then sewed those strips together. This seemed like a logical thing to do at the time, but in retrospect, I should have pinned all 36 squares together first. This probably would have made the columns line up more evenly.
After I got all the squares sewn together, I made my way to JoAnn Fabric to get the fabric for the back and edges. For the last blanket I made, I used red minky. I intended to get the same thing in blue, but none of the blue options seemed quite the right shade. Then I spotted another micro-fleece (not sure if it's technically considered "minky" or not) that was just the right blue/gray and super soft. I got 1.5 yards of it.
At this point, I washed both the micro-fleece and sewn-together flannel squares to shrink them up before sewing them together. I cut the micro-fleece to 48"x48". Then I followed the same instructions I used before (video and text).
This micro-fleece was a little more difficult to work with than the red minky I'd used before. I think that's because it was a bit thicker and fluffier. My new sewing machine definitely does a good job of feeding the fabric. I'm slowly learning to trust it more.
Anyway, here's the final product. I hope Cathy likes it as much as my other friend liked hers!
