Simple Minky Baby Blanket

Raya is a security blanket girl.  She calls them her “geegees”.  I have no idea why… she’s so good with other words, LOL.  But if she’s going to be hauling one around, I love it when it’s something I’ve made, you know?

This is a really soft and simple blanket.  I just used the amount of fabric I had leftover, which was about 30″ square.  You can make this blanket any size, though!  Security blankets are nice all the way down to about 18″ square – and it doesn’t have to be square, either.

I did round the corners just to add a sweet touch.  It’s totally optional, but I’ll show you how.  You only need basic sewing skills to make this – it’s a great beginner project.  You just need equal amounts of minky (or another soft material) and your main fabric of choice.  Your thread can either coordinate or contrast.  When you are using two different kinds of fabric like this, it’s really important to pre-wash them.  If they are going to shrink at all, you want it to happen BEFORE you sew them together, or all your hard work will just end up puckered.

If you plan to round your corners, here’s how I do it – just find something round, like a mug or bowl, and set it on the corner of your fabric.  Trace it with a pencil or disappearing marker on the backside.

Then, just trim the corners off to round them.

Now, lay your minky out, soft side up.  Place your main fabric on top, right side down.  The two right sides of the fabric will be facing each other.

Now, pin all the way around.  Along one side, leave a hole that’s about 4 inches wide.  As long as it’s big enough to fit your hand/arm in, you should be good!  I just leave that un-pinned to remind me not to sew over where my hole should be.  Just don’t put your hole on a corner – you’ll find it much easier if it’s at least a few inches from the corner, on a nice straight stretch.

Now, stitch all the way around.  Sew on the non-minky side – it will be easier!  Use whatever seam allowance you are comfortable with.  And make sure you leave that hole!  Now, when you are done, turn your blanket over, and make sure your minky side is fully sewn in, and you didn’t go over the edge anywhere.  It’s easy to catch and fix now.

Now, trim all the excess fabric down to about 1/4″ or so.

Reach into that hole you left, and pull the right side out.  You will also want to smooth out all of the corners.

Once everything looks good, we’re going to fix that hole!  Just carefully tuck the raw edge under, and pin it shut.  It’s worth the effort to make it look nice here, so use however many pins you need, or adjust it however many times you need.  If you get it right, no one will ever know there was a hole!

Then, top stitch all the way around the blanket.  All that you need to do is just run a line of stitching through both layers of fabric very close to the edge.  Again, sew on the non-minky side.  It’s easier.  If your machine does decorative stitches, you might want to try one of those!  Mine doesn’t… alas.  (Something to ask Santa for.) ;)

And that’s it – you have a sweet and soft little 2-sided blanket for the cutie in your life, in under an hour!

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