I am in love with faux chenille blankets, like serious love with them. They are so soft {and get even softer the more you wash them}. I knew after I made one for a baby shower last year that I just had to make Lola one of her very own too!
Fast forward about 9 months later, 'cause that is how I roll around here, I finally got around to making her one. Only hers wasn't just faux chenille on one side and cotton/flannel on the other, as recommended, but rather cheetah print minky fabric! I wasn't sure if it would even work, based on everything I read about minky {first time sewing with it was on this project btw}, but I knew that it would take my already favorite blanket to make to the next level if I could get it to work!
Let me start off by saying that YES, sewing with 4 layers of cotton to make the faux chenille side and one layer of minky works! Just be prepared to triple, if not quadruple, the time it typically takes to make this blanket {which is about 8 hours}. You can also expect to discover muscles that you never knew you had before while sewing! I wish I would have had someone take a picture of me while sewing this bad girl {yes, it is a girl blanket}, because I literally had to plant my left let against one of the legs on the chair and brace myself as I pulled the five layers through the machine! I am sure I looked ridiculous, but I was determined to make this work! I also used a standard foot on my machine, so nothing special is needed!
I am not going to try and do a tutorial on this or how I made mine, but rather direct you to where I go for directions when I make these blankets. Dana, who blogs over at Made, has an incredibly easy {and free, 'cause she is awesome like that} tutorial to follow and I highly recommend you go there for this part if you are interested in trying to make your own! Seriously though, if you can sew a straight line you can make this blanket {with or without the minky}, just be prepared for how much time they take! I promise you that I am no where close to being any kind of expert sewer, I really know just the basics. If I can do it, you can too! If you decide to use minky fabric, click here or here for helpful tips! The only thing I have for you is...
Thirty-two hours later {or something like that}, I LOVE how it turned out and I am pretty sure my cheetah print lovin' little girl agrees!
I also love its versatility and how different and beautiful it looks on each side!
On the left is how it typically looks when her bed is made {which is like never...okay, I take that back, when my mom stays with us it is made then}. On the right, I laid it out on top of her full sized bed so you could see how big it is! I think it ended up being about 1 and 3/4 yards and was 52 inches wide {pretty sure standard size is 45 inches?}, no reason really, just liked how it looked!
I couldn't find binding that matched, so I ended up making this myself?! I went to just about every quilting store in the valley and it just wasn't the right color or size. Finally, the sweet ladies over at Mulqueen showed me how to do it on my own! I think they could see I was about to cry real tears. I could do it again, but don't ask me to explain it right now! I am sure there is a great tutorial for this somewhere! They told me to hand stitch it, but I didn't listen. Way too much work! Honestly, you can only tell it looks a little bit crooked when you look super close, but thought you might wanna still see that it is not perfect! I am a firm believer that imperfections happen to be beautiful and give things character!
My crooked lines don't seem to matter to her either! Whew! She LOVES her blanket!!! I love that it is one that she will be able to grow up with and when she gets too big, it can easily become a throw blanket for her!
