Easy to Sew Fleece Baby Blanket

When someone is having a baby girl I instantly want to knit a cute little sweater or a blanket.  I always feel that these items will be cherished by the little girl as she grows.  A little boy on the other hand, I worry will not value a knitted sweater with bows on it.  That is why I like to make them fleece blankets.  You can see previous baby gifts I have made here and here.

Here is part two of Jamie's baby shower gift.  The nursery will be ocean themed, so this blanket should fit right it!   I chose a nice fleece (ocean print) for one side of the blanket and a soft flannel (solid blue) for the the other.  The last baby blanket I made was with two layers of fleece, but I decided that might be too heavy, that's why I swapped it out for the flannel instead.  To find my length I doubled the width of the printed fleece and had my flannel cut to match.

Step one is to wash both fabrics, it would be awful if they shrank to different sizes after the blanket was made!  Then I laid them out on the carpet on top of each other (wrong sides together).  I purchased double-fold biased tape to edge my blanket with, you can make your own, but this made it super easy.  It took me two packages to complete this blanket, I wrapped it around my blanket perimeter and pinned it in place.

The biased went on the inside with the folds facing up.

To make a mitered corner I first laid the biased tape past the edge.

Then fold the tape at a 45* angle to the right.

Fold it completely in half across your previous fold.

At points the two strips of biased tape needed to be joined.  This is easily done by folding over the edge of the first layer and then overlapping the second layer.

When you sew it down the edges will connect with only a small seam!

After all corners were folded and the biased tape was pinned in place along the blanket I trimmed the edges following the biased tape.

It was important to keep all of the baby projects dog hair free, so I vacuumed the office/craft room and then barricaded the door.  The dogs were not thrilled with idea, but they had no idea what softness they were missing out on - on the other side of the door!

Now it is time to sew sew sew!  I lined up my presser-foot on the right with the edge of the blanket and went to town!  This row of stitching will be hidden under the fold of the biased tape.

Then you fold your biased tape over and tuck under the last fold.  This stitch will show, so try to sew as straight as possible.   I aligned my presser-foot on the left with the edge of the biased tape.

Wen you flip the biased tape over your corners will create a beautiful mitered corner, sometimes they just need a little smoothing in the right direction and a pin to hold them in place, but trust me it works!

And here is the backside of the blanket.  I'm not the most experienced seamstress, in fact I only learned about 3 years ago and am self-taught, so my stitching is not the straightest thing in the book as you can see.

Love how these corners look though!

And that's a wrap, such an easy blanket to make!

This blanket will be perfect for tummy playtime on the floor and for snuggling with on cold nights.  And I hope as the baby turns into a little man maybe it will even be used as a superhero cape!

What other gifts have you made for baby boys?