Teen Sew! A Teen's Guide to Sewing: November 2012

Now that Thanksgiving is over, there's only one logical thing to do: Think about Christmas. I've pretty much been on sewing withdrawal these last few months, itching to do a project, but never having enough time to do much of anything. Yah, yah, I know- what could a 15 year old be doing that takes up every waking hour? You'd be surprised.
But enough of my boring life. Let's get onto the sewing!

You know how I asked what is taking up so much of my precious sewing time? Well, I'll give you an answer- marching band. Not to brag or anything, but we're the state champions right here in sunny old Florida. But being champions doesn't come easy- we usually practice about 4 days a week, 5 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I love marching to death. It can just sometimes get a bit tedious.

So anywho, in band, we have these people that are supposed to be our "big sisters". Basically they are an older band member who helps a younger, much less experienced member (such as myself) get through the season. Now that marching band season is over though, I started to think what I should do to sort of pay my older sister back for all the help she gave me this season. Trust me- without her, I would suck. And I'm not even that good now, so you get the idea. Anywho, it took me a while to think of the idea, but finally it hit me: a blanket. During the marching season, we take many long late night bus trips to and from competitions, and a blanket is just what she would need.

All it took was a quick trip to Joann's and about an hour of sewing, which is just the way I like it. This is the fabric I picked. Isn't it just adorable?

Great lighting, I know. Don't worry, complimenting isn't necessary :). Anywho, all I did was use a simple "blanket" stitch (a fairly common stitch that can be found on most modern machines) to sew off the raw edges. I did that to every edge, so it looked like this.

Cute, right?

Now I know all of my blahing on and on isn't exactly informative, so I formatted the information in tutorial form, as you can see below.

Let it Snow Blanket Tutorial

Materials:

2 yards of 58 " fleece

Sewing Machine (duh)

Thread (also duh)

Instructions:

1. Sew a side of the blanket, very near the edge. The stitch must pick up the edge of the fabric, so I recommend trying a test swatch first in order to make sure you get the right idea.

2. Sew 3 other sides, clipping the end threads as you go.

3. As you can see, making blankets isn't hard. In fact, you probably knew that from the get go. But I'm just nice and decided to lay out some murky instructions for ya :)

More pics of my beautiful blanket are below. Aren't they great quality? Yah, I'll be back to using tripods for my next post, don't worry.