Wednesday, March 7, 2012

An Easy-Peasy No Sew Blanket

On a trip to Joann's to buy brown fabric for my storage nook curtains I perused the remnant bargain bin and found really cute light green and white polka dot fleece fabric.  I figured I could use it for a baby blanket or something so decided to buy it.  I remembered a friend of mine had made a no sew blanket by tying a couple of pieces of fleece together so I decided to give that a try.  So back to Joann's I went to find another piece of fleece for my blanket..........but you know how it is, you go for one thing and end up leaving with something else (at least it's that way for me!).  So trying to find something to go with the fleece I already had I came across some super soft "ultra cuddle" fleece.  It was just so soft I couldn't resist so I bought a yard each of two different "ultra cuddle" fleece fabrics.  I picked a pretty teal color..........and a lime green and white polka dot pattern :o)

The width of the fabric was 60" so I cut it down to 1 1/3 yard by the 1 yard I had cut to make it not so long and narrow.  If I was going to do a blanket for an adult or larger child I would probably get 2 yards of each piece of fabric.


I looked up a couple tutorials online (here and here) for the actual "how to" and went from there.  The first step was to place the right sides of the fabric together (if you are using a patterned fabric) and cut 5" to 6" squares from each corner (depending on which tutorial you follow), so I took the middle road and cut 5 1/2" squares.  So when measuring your fabric make sure to take into account 10" to 12" will be lost to the making the knots.  I also found out the "ultra cuddle" fleece sheds a lot where it was cut so my work surface was covered with blue and green fuzz.


After all the corners were cut, cut strips about 1 1/2" wide to the depth of your corner squares (5 1/2" for my blanket) all the way around the blanket.  I didn't worry about being perfect and measuring everything, I just eyeballed what looked like 1 1/2 inches.


Next I tied the corresponding strips of the bottom and top fabrics together with a basic knot.  And here we have the finished blanket.  I really like how the ties of the teal fabric contrast with the lime green polka dots of the opposite side.   


And quality control (a.k.a Bailey) had to perform the final inspection, he takes his job very seriously!


To get rid of all the fuzz, I put the blanket in the washer.  Which worked well at removing the fuzz but most of my knots also came out so I had to re-tie them.  I think with regular fleece the knots would hold better through washings but with the ultra soft they slipped out.  Oh well, it wasn't that big of a deal to re-tie and I think the softness makes up for it!

So here it is after washing and re-tying:


I think I really need to make one for myself, and Bay may need one too, this baby blanket is a little too tempting for his kneading claws :o)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

After you washed it, did it still fuzz and fray?

Linda said...

After the first washing it hasn't frayed. I think the first washing got rid of all the loose fuzz.

Anonymous said...

What a cute idea for us non-sewers out there!

Anonymous said...

it says on joanns website that ultra cuddle fabric is not intended for no sew...does it hold up and not keep fraying?

Linda said...

I didn't have trouble with fraying but the knot ties come out with washing. If you use the regular fleece you will not have the problem. Hope that helps!

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