frustration!

When I saw this post on purl bee for the "cozy quick blankie," I immediately bought enough organic cotton fleece and rick-rack to make a blanket for myself and one for my sister. It seemed like the perfect quick but cute project for a new baby. I chose Amy Butler's midwest modern fabric for my sister's blanket, and some tree and bird fabric I had in my stash (and had intended to use for baby stuff) for myself. I figured that since I can (almost) sew a straight line, this project would be fairly simple.

Well, it wasn't.

The fleece was awful to work with. After washing, it shrunk in unpredictable ways and ended up as a big parallelogram rather than a square. So the blankets had to be smaller than I had originally hoped. Getting the two layers together smoothly proved to be even more difficult. I constructed my sister's blanket with the fleece layer on top, resulting in a puckery saggy fabric layer. Thinking I was wiser the second time around, I did mine with the fabric layer on top, and guess what? I ended up with a saggy fleece layer! The picture above is the only one in which you can't see my absolute frustration with these blankets - Adam came into the room and started taking pictures of me sewing and then I started getting mad at the blankets and mad at him!

All-in-all, I ended up with two respectable (and usable) baby blankets, but they aren't perfect. Next time (if there is one) I will tape one of the layers to the floor - like you would for basting a quilt. I think that would help. Also, I will never buy expensive organic cotton fleece again and instead would use economical 100% cotton flannel for this blanket if I ever were to make one again. Then I could make each blanket for under $10, rather than the $30 I spent on each blanket. I guess you could say it was a learning experience!