A Hand Cut Chenille Baby Blanket

Ever since I saw this idea on one of my favorite craft blogs, Made via this post. I immediately decided I needed to make my own. So I searched the blogosphere, and found a great tutorial on another great craft blog, The Aesthetic Nest. For the full tutorial I reference below, click HERE.

One of Greg's long time friends is going to be a dad in a few weeks, and I thought it was the perfect excuse to try this out!




The mom to be told me she had chosen an animal theme for their new baby girl's nursery. I'm pretty sure she actually said zoo or jungle...but I can't remember now which. Either way, I found this fabric at Joann's and thought it would work great, with pink and lavender but not too girly.

I followed the tutorial almost exactly as written. Basically you take a square of cotton, and 3 squares of flannel & quilt together on the bias.

The quilted lines you sew end up being channels of flannel (haha..sorry). This part took A. LONG. TIME. But just find a Say Yes to the Dress marathon on TV and time passes a wee bit quicker. Before you know it, you are done the quilting, and ready to cut.

As expected, my 4 layers shifted quite a bit during the quilting process, and so I had to even up the edges quite a bit. As a result, my blanket turned out to be more of a rectangle than a square...but still very much the same effect. And babies don't care about geometry.

The directions talked about a chenille cutter to cut your rows of flannel. I had never heard of one...but can see now why I would want one! Scissors worked fine though, despite the painfully stiff hand after. I was very paranoid about cutting the front fabric, so I cut super slow. Might be a reason for the rigor mortis. 

Here is my blanket after I had cut the flannel and binded the edges. The directions said to cut your store bought 2 inch satin binding in half and make a skinnier binding. I wanted less work a wider border so I used it as it was out of the package, uncut.

Then you throw your almost finished blanket into the washer & dryer, and wait for the fraying to do its magic.

Aaaaand....voila!

...it turns out all soft & cozy, just how babies like it.