Bandana Blankets :: a tutorial and a giveaway!!!

Please, whatever you do, please, please, pleeeeeease... don't sew like I do! I learned to sew in the back of a very tiny little theater, this tiny little theater in fact, from a technical director who was a magician with a sewing machine but lived by that old theater adage that things only needed to last 7 nights and only look good in the dark. I hope that what I lack in technique I make up for in enthusiasm!

So, here is a tutorial on how to make a bandana blanket and anyone who reads the whole thing, or just skips down to the combox at the end and leaves a comment will be entered in a little giveaway!

Step One: Prepare your fabric.

Choose your backing fabric and your coordinating bandanas. They can be different colors or all the same color. It's up to you. I like to make a 2x2 blanket for babies and a 2x3 for toddlers and little kids. So that means 4 bandanas for a baby blanket or 6 for a toddler blanket. You'll need 1 1/2 - 2 yds. of fabric for the back and batting for the middle. You can purchase batting off a bolt or just pick up a package of crib size batting. It's the perfect size for these blankets but buying it off the bolt is sometimes cheaper. Make sure your fabric is all cotton because really, it's the best! (I have used both cotton and poly batting, it usually depends on what I can find and afford.)

Machine wash and dry your bandanas and your fabric. Then you will want to iron everything except the batting of course. Well, you may not WANT to, but you need to. You'll thank me later.

Step Two: Sew the bandanas in pairs. 

Here's the funny thing about bandanas. They are not always perfectly square and sometimes the borders are not perfectly even. Most of them are a smidge rectangular. So, you're going to want to hold two (different colors if you are using different colors) up to a window or a light and try to match up the printed designs, not the corners of the bandana. Also, they may not look like they have right sides, but most bandanas do so make sure you've got your right sides together.

It's weird, I know but it makes the blanket lie much smoother in the long run. It doesn't have to be perfect, just eyeball it!

Chances are, your corners and edges will not match up. It's OK. You're gonna cut those off anyway.... not now, but later. 

Pin one side.

Stitch it.

Use the pattern as your guide for your seam allowance. I eyeball it to about an inch from the edge of the printed design.

Trim it.

I like to use pinking shears.

Iron it.

Open or flat to one side, makes no difference.

Repeat for remaining two or four bandanas. You don't need to be concerned yet about which side which color is on. Just get them sewed in pairs on one side.

Step three: Sew the bandanas all together.
Here is where color placement becomes an issue if you've got multicolored bandanas. With right sides together, you want opposite colors facing each other. Line them up according to the center seam, ignoring the edging and use the see-through technique or fold up the top one to get them straight across again.

Then, pin it, stitch it, trim it and iron it again. Just that one side.

So that when you open it, it looks like this:

And when you flip it over, it looks like this:

Don't worry if your seams don't match up exactly. Mine don't... bet you'd never notice in the dark!

If you are making a larger quilt, do this step all over again for your third set of bandanas and it should look like this:

Step Four: Sewing it all together
Here is how I like to layer it. Find yourself a large space on the floor or at a table and spread out your batting nice and smooth. Then place your backing fabric, right side up  on top of the batting. It will lay out nice and smooth because you ironed it! You're welcome. Finally, place your bandana topper, right side down, on top of the backing fabric. Should look like this:

Pin it all the way around leaving an opening big enough for your hand to fit through on one end.

I like to mark my opening with double pins so I don't accidentally stitch it closed.

Trim it... 

...especially the corners.

Flip it inside out. Don't forget to poke out the corners.

Step Five: Finishing it.

Once you make sure the corners are nice and pointy, turn the opening inside itself and iron it flat. 

Use a blind hem stitch to stitch it closed. You can probably find a YouTube video showing you how if you don't know. It looks like this:

And now... you are done!

Don't fret if it's not perfectly even or even straight. In my experience it usually looks like this...

...so no one will even notice. Plus, it'll be dark.

These blankets machine wash and dry beautifully. The more you use them, the softer they get!

Hello?

Is anyone still there?

And now for the giveaway!

Leave me a comment or send me an email and tell me about your favorite blanket (it can be one that you loved or one that your kids love) and I will select a winner who will receive the bandana blanket featured in this tutorial! 

That's right. 

The very one you saw me put together here! 

One lucky person will get to own it, mismatched seams and all. :-)

I'm leaving this giveaway open until Thursday and will announce a winner on Friday. Feel free to spread the word and share the chance to win! Anyone can enter, you don't even have to have a baby right now. Please make sure you leave me an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner!