Baby Burp Blanket Project

I found this great little Baby Burp Cloth Tutorial by Marie at "MakeandTakes.com." This is a great little space. If you are crafty at all, there are some great projects for pretty much everyone there! And the instructions include great photos, too--very helpful!!!

I was looking for some creative baby gifts because there were a few babies to be born. In all honesty, I'm not great gift-giver (Yes, Helen, I know we have had this conversation a bazillion times!!! I don't feel like I am a great gift-giver!). Gift-picking-out is a huge stress for me, so this time I thought I would find something to make instead. In addition, I had a bunch of this cotton material that would work perfectly for this project, so. . .I just had to go buy all the fancy stuff. . .and that is much more exciting anyway!

So. . .here were my instructions. I printed them off, but my daughter has grown fond of cutting and colouring anything and everything. I had to do a little taping to make them read-able!
Here are some of my supplies (I was obviously trying to make a blanket for a girl!)

As for the tutorial, I made some alterations (of course!) I wanted to be a little more creative, so instead of just using quilting binding, I bought some flannel, and made the binding on my own, using 2 inch strips. Very time consuming, but much more funky! I also decided to put binding all the way around the blanket, rather than just on the top and bottom as outlined in the tutorial. I sewed the binding onto one side as you would with a quilt (tried a continuous quilt binding as shown on Hello, my name is Heather and then zigzagged the other side in place (rather than hand-sewing the whole thing. I figured I could get away with that as it was a burp blanket!) One other thing I did was put the "decorations" on one side, rather than one on each side as in the tutorial. I just thought that if there was a chance that the ribbon could get scratchy, then there was still lots of room for "usage." i dilemma-ed over adding two buttons with bows on one end for additional decoration, but then decided that might be a little too much. I might try it on my next one to see how it looks. (See, you also have to understand that I was planning to make this for my friend,thinking I had lots of time to think this over and make all those little decorating decisions, and then she had her baby two weeks early!!!!)

Here it is all rolled up and cute. I added a baby washcloth to the set as well. Maybe next time I will think about whether or not it is worth it to edge the washcloth as well. For this gift, I left it plain, and I don't think it looks so bad!

And here is some of my "boy" stuff. . .since there is a cute little boy who still needs one of these (still-so sorry Noah!), too. Hopefully I'll have some time this Christmas vacation to make a few more of these! (And a few extras to keep on hand for future babies to be born!)