receiving blankets

Confession: I have only made one thing for my little Emmie.

But at least its a good one. . . a receiving blanket. We use it all the time. It's light, but warm. It's a swaddler and a carseat blanket. It soaks up spit up and washes well. And it looks good.

This one I did for a friend. They're so fun to make and, um, extremely easy too.

Materials: You just need 1 yard solid color flannel (I almost always just use white or off-white, flannel colors tend to be too saturated for my taste), 1 yard of a beautiful print (both of these happen to be Amy Butler designs, you can't go wrong with her stuff), and 1 1/4 yard contrasting or harmonizing fabric for bias binding. . . oh, and I like to add on a little fabric tag (the bears and hearts are both some that I've designed and printed at Spoonflower but you can cut a little piece out of whatever fabric you like, like I did here.)

Instructions: Pre-wash all fabrics, and then iron them flat. Place flannel and print right-sides out and smooth out any bubbles. The flannel will stick to the print, but go ahead and pin it to keep them from shifting. Square up all sides and trim off some length so you end up with a roughly 34-36" square. Sew on your little applique tag in one corner. Bind the edges (I think my method is similar to this one, if you need a tutorial.) Et voila.

Are you reading back through to see if you missed a step? Are you thinking I missed a step? You know, the one where you sew the two body pieces of fabric together? Surprise! You don't have to! It works just fine without doing it! Trust me! It just works. Sometimes simple is the best solution.