Blanket or Pillow? You Decide!

by QueenElizabeth in Craft > Sewing

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Blanket or Pillow? You Decide!

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This is a great craft if your mom, like mine, spends a lot of her time sitting on hard bleachers, or out in the cold, watching your game.

It is a large fleece blanket that folds into a comfy fleece pillow. You can even add straps out of reinforced fleece for her to use it as a lightweight purse!

This is a VERY easy sewing craft. You only need to know how to measure, and sew three straight lines.

Materials

You will need:

If you want to make the blanket with only one color, you will need 2 1/2 yards of fleece
If you want the blanket and pillow part to be out of different fabrics, you will need 2 yards of the blanket fleece and 1/2 yard of the pillow fleece. The two colors can be your team's colors, or you can use a pattern and a solid, as in the picture.

Needle and thread

Scissors

Measuring tape


Cutting the Pillow

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If you are using only one color, lay out your fleece and find one of the shorter sides. Measure 20 inches up from the edge, and a strip off the bottom of the fabric, 20 inches wide. Then measure 20 inches from the short side of your strip, and cut. You will end up with one 20in by 20in square of fabric.

If you are using a different color for the pillow part, measure a 20in by 20in square and cut.

(Optional) If you want to decorate your pillow, now is the time to do it. Get creative, use ribbon, buttons, fabric paint, whatever you can find. Just remember that you will be sewing about half an inch in from three of the sides, so don't put anything there you can't sew through.

Sewing the Pillow

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Lay out the blanket flat. If the blanket were a bed, go to where your head would be. Place your pillow so the top edge of your pillow is even with the top edge of the blanket. Measure in from the sides of the blanket to make sure the pillow is centered.

If you chose to decorate your pillow, place the decorated side face down on the blanket.

Sew the blanket and pillow together about half an inch in from the sides of the pillow. Sew only three of the sides, leaving the side that meets the edge of the blanket open. This will form the pocket to put your blanket in.

You're done! All that's left is to fold it into a pillow, and add handles out of scrap fabric if you want.

Folding the Finished Blanket Into a Pillow

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This part can be a little confusing the first time, see the pictures if you are confused. Also, feel free to ask me a question in the comments.

Lay the blanket out so that the side with the pillow is face down.

Fold the long sides in, so it looks like a narrow rectangle.

Then, starting at the bottom (the end without the pillow) fold the blanket up in thirds.

You will fold the blanket up three times, until it rests on top of the pillow part, and is a perfect square.

Inside Out

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Keeping all the layers of the blanket together, fold the pillow inside out, until all the blanket folds are inside. That's it! To make it into a blanket again, simply pull the blanket part out of the pocket the pillow makes for it.

Remember, these easy projects allow for a lot of personal creativity, what Mom wants most in any mother's day present!

Please comment with any questions or suggestions, I am still rather new at writing these, and would appreciate the help.