Photo Challenge for 2014

I love the idea of all the different photo challenges you can find online.  However, I cannot keep up with a daily or even weekly challenge!  I know there are monthly ones out there but I thought I would try my hand at creating my own challenge.  So here it is!  Let me know if you're going to join me!  I'd love to see others interpretations of these words.

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DIY Taggie Blanket

 If your baby is anything like mine then they LOVE anything with tags. You can buy those taggie blankets at the store, but I thought - hey that doesn't look so hard AND I could totally personalize it if I made it myself! So that is what I did my friends and here's how you can too.

 

 The best thing about this is that you can customize it to whatever your little one likes.  My daughter loves Yo Gabba Gabba so that's what I went with for my main theme.  I found the Yo Gabba Gabba fabric on eBay.  I bought it as a fat quarter and that's the size I made my blanket so it's easy for her to carry around.  The purple minky fabric for the back I got at Joann's.

The other items you're going to need are a bunch of ribbon.  This is the fun part because you can use all different colors and styles of ribbon.  You'll also want to have a bunch of pins, a fabric cutter and mat and a sewing machine. I'm sure you could sew this by hand, but I would be totally lost doing that and the machine is so much faster!

First step is to cute your fabric to size on your mat.  It's okay if they aren't totally perfect because you're going to be turning this inside out when we're done sewing so you won't see the rough edges.

Also, if you haven't already, cut up your ribbon into strips.  Make them long enough to be a loop that's sewn in.  I did mine in different lengths because I wanted them to be varied around the blanket.

Now you're going to lay your fabric with the fronts facing each other and pin your ribbon in between them in loops.  The loop should go inside the fabric, so you'll see the ends of the ribbon sticking out and the pins on the back of the fabric like the photo above. 

Here you can see what it looks like if you flip it over.  Pin the ribbon loops all the way around your blanket.

Next it's off to the sewing machine.  I totally forgot to take pictures of these steps but I will talk you through it the best I can.  You're going to sewing around the blanket, taking the pins out as you go to stitch in the ribbon loops. Try to sew in as straight a line as you can. Keep going around until you get to where you have about 2-3 inches left.

Now you're going to take the blanket off the machine.  You should have a 2-3 inch hole and you can get one ribbon loop there.  The next step is to turn the blanket right side out thru your opening.  Then you can put the ribbon loop into place and put the blanket back into the sewing machine.  Sew the hole shut and the last ribbon loop into place.  Continue to go all the way around the blanket one more time on the outside to insure a good secure stitch.

That's it, you're done! You can see my completed blanket right here and my little one loves it.  I'm super happy with how it turned out!  Let me know if you make one and what theme you decide to do!