Baby Shower Gift

As I mentioned in my first post the whole reason I began creating my own items was when I was invited to a coworkers baby shower.  I had been reading my favorite group of blogs for a while by then and knew exactly what I wanted to make.  A taggie blanket.  You may be thinking to yourself what the heck is a taggie blanket?  Well my dear readers, it is a blanket with ribbons folded to look like t-shirt tags.  I have known many of my friends kids to basically eat the tag of their stuffed animals and my former students (when I was teaching kindergarten) to eat the tags on their clothes.

Back to the blanket I made.  I decided that I didn't just want to make the taggie blanket, I wanted to make it more personal.  For me that meant embroidering the childs name onto the blanket.  I did have prior experience embroidering so I knew that it could be done.  I purchased the fabric
and the embroidery floss color to compliment both fabrics.

Super cute sleepy bears and fun zoo fabrics

I went to work embroidering the child's name and cutting out what would be the front and back of the blanket.  I brought all of my pieces over to my boyfriends' Mom's house to borrow her sewing machine.  Mind you, I had not sewn using a machine since my Home Ec days in 8th grade (about 12 years ago).  I had to call my Mom to find out how to tread the darn thing - luckily the bobbin had enough thread.

I used three different types of ribbon and I made sure that they evenly were spaced the whole way around (yes I am a sucker for punishment of my own doing!)

I laid out my two sides of the blanket wrong sides out and inserted my cut ribbons between them, pinned it all up, and sewed that baby shut.

Well except for a small part so that I could turn it of course.  Once it was turned I hand sewed up the small hole and declared the blanket done!

Now the only bad part was that I was so excited about making my gift that I ended up having it finished almost two months before the shower!  Don't worry I managed to keep it a secret from the Momma to be.

I created a second taggie blanket for a friend of mine for her first baby a few months after making this one.  I was smarter that time and took more "during" pictures.  I will treat you with those another day.