June 19, 2018

Tag Blankets

Over the past couple of weeks I needed 3 baby gifts, two for girls and one for a boy, so I decided to make some tag blankets. I already had one for a boy, which you can see here, so I only needed to make the two girl ones.

I had a charm pack of beautiful, feminine fabrics that I won from Sandra at Musings of a Menopausal Melon during the most recent 30 Quilt Designs challenge, so this seemed like the perfect time to use some of them. I love that they're very girly, without being pink or purple. I do love both pink and purple, but sometimes you want something a little different, especially since almost everything available for baby girls is one or both of those colours.
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
I used 16 of the charm squares for each of the blankets, sewn in a simple 4 x 4 layout.

Then I went digging through my assorted ribbons to see what I have on hand that would coordinate. It wasn't a lot, to be honest, but I made it work by adding one to every other square, rather than every square like I did before. I may have to stock up on ribbons, just for those times I need to make a quick gift from my stash 😉

I stitched back and forth over each ribbon a bunch of times to make sure they'll hold up to being tugged on repeatedly.
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
It was fun to add my label as one of the ribbons!
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
I had this fabulous blue and yellow floral in my stash that worked perfectly for the backing. It was just barely enough. I even had to piece one of the backings and it ended up taking three seams to make it big enough.
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
I used some of the Hobbs Thermore batting I got in my Island Batik box. It's super thin, which I wouldn't want for a normal quilt, but it was nice for these.

I don't think I shared the story of this spool of blue thread here before. Nathan insisted he wanted to buy me something for Mother's Day, even though I told him he didn't need to (we don't do gifts usually). He went after school on the Tuesday or Wednesday before Mother's Day to pick it out and then wrapped it immediately after he got home. He was practically dancing around, he was so excited about what he had picked out and he could hardly wait to give it to me. When I opened it, I got the biggest kick out of what he had picked out! That spool of blue thread is definitely one of the sweetest gifts I've been given 😊
Tag blankets | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
Now he loves to hear when I'm using the thread he gave me, so it was nice that it works perfectly with these fabrics. I stitched around the edge of the blanket to close up the hole I used to turn it right side out, then stitched on either side of each of the seams. Quick, simple and pretty!

All three blankets have been gifted now. The mom who will soon be having the boy told me that when she had her daughter she bought her a similar blanket, but it had different materials for the tags. One of them was rubber-like and when she washed  and dried the blanket, she melted it! That won't happen with this one 😊

These are a nice, quick baby gift, perfect for when I don't have time for a full baby quilt. What's your go-to handmade baby gift that's not a quilt?

6 comments:

  1. I'm commenting first so I'll be sure to see your comments. Still hoping Blogger fixes this issue soon.

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  2. What a perfect project to use the thread for. I love that your label is one of the tags, too! :)

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  3. Perfect gifts for baby and the yellow and blue really looks lovely together. Well, I usually made a small diaper bag for a quick gift.

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  4. Leanne, I love the story of your thread. When the kids pick something out that they are excited to give you it just gets me. I can imagine his satisfaction at seeing you use and appreciate his gift. He sounds like such a sweet guy.

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  5. This is a test comment to see if the fix for the comment problem worked. Fingers crossed!

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  6. These are so cute. I've never made one, but definitely need to give it a try.

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