THE Blanket

I have four nephews - Jack, Luke, Wyatt, and Christian. Jack, Luke, and Wyatt are my brother, Mike's, boys. Christian is the son of my dearest friends, Kory and Sara - so even though there's no blood involved, Christian's still my nephew. 

So I saw this great idea on Pinterest to make a Super Hero Blanket and I thought of Jack, Luke, and Christian who are all really close in age (Luke turned 4 in April, Christian will be 5 on Friday, and Jack will be 6 in November. Wyatt's 4 months old and has no clue what a super hero is!) 

Now keep in mind that when it comes to anything other than photography and pictures, I'm not the most crafty. I have lots of creative ideas but always fail on the execution. This time I was determined. When I came back from the Canyon at the beginning of June, I was set on learning something new this summer. This Super Hero Blanket was the perfect idea. I started with Christian's blanket first because his birthday is first.

So I had to start somewhere - finding tshirts that I knew the boys would love to see on a blanket. I knew I didn't want to spend a ton of money on tshirts that I was about to rip to shreds and sew on a blanket. I went to Target and their boy shirts with cool graphics on it were between $9 - $12 a piece. No thanks. So I went to a bunch of thrift stores and consignment stores and bought shirts there. At this kids' consignment store near my house they have days designated towards certain colored price tags and on those days you could get up to 50% off. I was all over those deals. I knew I wanted about 6 shirts per blanket so when I had about 20 shirts, I called it good.

I also knew that I wanted to alternate the tshirts with these fabric patterns made out of Fabric Quarters that you can get at Joanne Fabrics. So I picked those up.

 My box of supplies - tshirts, fabric quarters, and a cutting board.

 So, naturally, after gathering supplies, I had to cut off all the tags and wash all the tshirts.

A bunch of the fabric squares that I chose.

 After I washed and dried all the shirts, I laid them all out so I could see all of my options and had to pick out which ones  I was going to for Christian's blanket.

The six I had planned on using originally, but at the last minute I made one substitution. 

 So I found the smallest tshirt, taped it to the board, and cut it down to a rectangle.

 Took an empty pizza box and cut it down to the final size of the Cars thsirt so I could size the rest of the shirts and fabric squares.

 I did the same thing for the fabric squares. I then folded the fabric squares in to smaller squares so I could make patterns out of them. Keep scrolling, you'll see what I mean.

 All the tshirts and fabric squares cut out and ready for the machine. At this point I still had to go pick out the blanket material - which I ended up going with a sweatshirt blanket which I love.

 Sewing the different fabric squares together to make the patterns.

 A finished fabric pattern all sewn together.

 I laid out all of the materials - alternating tshirts and fabric patterns onto the blanket to measure out how much fabric I needed. I also pinned the tshits and fabric together but not to the blanket so that way I could just scoop it off and back on the blanket easier.

 The final size of the blanket.

 It's not perfect, but this was my first real sewing project by myself. Note - I didn't straighten it out completely so those wrinkles aren't permanent. 

 I put the tshirt and fabric back on the blanket and sewed it on. That was BY FAR the hardest part of this whole project, but it's done. If you can't tell - there are two tshirts with big machines, two batman tshirts, a spiderman tshirt, and a cars tshirt.

It's not perfect, but there it is. In all it's glory. For my first time using a sewing machine and my first time doing anything crafty, I'm pretty proud of myself. So Christian, I hope you enjoy your blanket - it should be there by your birthday. Jack and Luke, yours will be done by Christmas!