A Quick and Easy Gift for Miss Claire

I think this was the first Christmas in a long time that I have not done any sewing/quilting projects for gifts. It certainly did remove a little stress from the holiday preparations!  :)  I did however make a gift for granddaughter Claire who was 2 in late August. I must admit I'm a little out of touch with who's who in the toddler world these days but I did know that Dora the Explorer is a favourite with Claire. I was lucky to find some lovely "Dora fleece" a few weeks back and matched it up with a solid purple for a fleece tie blanket. What little girl doesn't like "puhple"? Her bedroom is "puhple" and if a two year old can have a favourite colour, I'd say purple is it for Miss Claire. So Dora + purple = win/win!







It was a HUGE hit! She went nuts when she opened it! (If only every gift was received with such enthusiasm!!) It went everywhere with her while she was here for a few days just before Christmas, and of course covered her at night too. As you can see, it makes a great chair cover, when reading Dolly a story.

Have you tried making one of these? SO quick and easy! All you need are two pieces of fleece (the same size) and a pair of scissors or shears, and about an hour to an hour and a half. That's it. No sewing skills needed at all! You simply layer the two pieces of fleece, wrong sides together. Trim the edges if needed, so that the two pieces are exactly the same size. My fleece was 60" wide, so I bought 60" of length and I trimmed off roughly an inch all around. (This gets rid of any selvage or curly/wobbly edges.)

Enjoying a new book - see previous post

Next you cut a 4" square out of each corner, cutting through both layers. Then simply make slash cuts, about an inch apart and in 4" all around the entire blanket, again cutting through both layers. To finish you simply tie each pair of "slashes" together. That's it! Easy peasy! I confess, I used my rotary cutter and mat rather than shears. This kept all my cuts straight and even. This was a first for me, but what a fast simple gift for a little (or big!) person. I'm sorry, I never thought to take photos during the process, but it's pretty simple. If you want to make one and have any questions, just leave me a comment and I'll answer.








Just a few days after Christmas my great-niece Mallory called and asked if I knew how to make a fleece tie blanket and if so would I help her make one? "Why yes, I do!" I replied. haha
Her Mom had received one for Christmas so Mallory decided she'd like one too. So off we went to Fabricville to choose some fleece, came home and zip, zip, it was done! We both did some cutting and tieing and it was done in no time! What fun! And two special girls now have cozy blankets. I think Martha would say "That's a good thing..."


Peace,
Linda

"May no gift be too small to give, nor too simple to receive, which is wrapped in thoughtfulness and tied with love." ~ L. O. Baird