Baby Shower Blanket

As some of you know, there's more to me than making jewelry and flowers, I am also crafty at other things.  A couple weeks ago I got an evite from an old friend, someone I've known for a good 30 years.  It was for a baby shower/house warming party. I took one look at her baby registry and said "I'm making something."  The reason for this was two fold, one I'm out of work and can't afford to spend much, and two, I just didn't see anything on her registry that I wanted to get for little money.  So I decided to make my money go further by giving her a handmade blanket. 

Since I can't sew a straight line to save my life with a sewing machine, I decided to do a handmade blanket, fleece to be exact.  Rather than tab the edges of the two pieces of fleece to attach them, I went with a blanket stitch.  A quick search on youtube and I found this video:

I watched the video twice, once the day I looked for it and then again the next week when I actually had the fabric and was ready to sew.  It was a super easy stitch, I just didn't know how to add an additional length of thread so I stumbled my way through it the first two times, which resulted in two bad stitches but by the third one I had thought ahead and managed to make it look seamless.

in progress

in progress

finished

finished

All in all, it took a little over 2 hours to stitch together.  Trimming the fabric so that they were even took less than a half hour, I asked my mom to do that for me because I can't cut a straight line anymore and didn't want to ruin this.

As for the results...  it was a huge hit with the ladies that were sitting close and paying attention to what was going on, including my comment about it being handmade.  Not only did my friend love it, but she kept wrapping herself in it.  I kept reminding her that was was for the baby, not her, but she was so cold (the air was on in the house) that she couldn't resist.  As I was walking to my car I once again teased her about the blanket being for the baby, I told her I'd make her one if she wanted.