Disaster of a Blanket

In the last weeks of my pregnancy, when I was starting to get a little impatient waiting on the little one's arrival I took my daughter to a fabric store.  As I was looking for material to make a baby carrier/wrap my daughter found some very bright orange minky material in the discounted section.  

She put on the puppy dog eyes and said, 'Mama we could make a silky blanket for the boy with this. It is so soft just like my blanket.  It can be a special gift I sew for the boy.'  

Yep, she knows her mother well.  A sewing project thought up by my little girl?  Yes, please.

So, we walked through the store and she chose the color silk she thought looked best.  She went with a bright, bold color palate, that I would have never even considered.   

I have never sewn minky before.  I assumed it would be about the same as silk, so we cut the silk to be the same width as the minky, placed the right sides together, and threw a handful of pins on the material.  

The little lady sat on my non-existent lap, and held the material up at the machine, and I controlled the foot pedal.

Hmmm, that did not work at all.  Time to pull out the seam ripper.  Since 5 year olds (at least mine) have short attention spans, I gave her ribbon to cut to put on the blanket to make it a taggie blanket.

Attempt #2.

I laid out the material again.  We lined up everything and added the ribbons.  I added a few more pins.  Daughter hops back up on my lap, and we begin sewing again, with the exact same results.

Ok, what is happening here?  I send my daughter off to play and head over to the computer to search for tips on Pinterest.  20 minutes later I have ripped out the seems again, lengthen the stitch length on my machine, added about a hundred extra pins, and am finally ready to sew again.  The daughter has since lost interest in this project, and asks to just draw a picture for her little brother.

Attempt #3

Success.  Sort of.

The material isn't puckered but it is not exactly straight either.  

I finish up the other three sides, going slower than a snail.  This project became a test of patience and will power.  I do not ever sew slow.  It is pedal to the floor typically.  

It took me two hours to pin the blanket, and sew carefully around making sure the ribbons stayed in place.  I also had a huge seam allowance.  It was 1 1/2 inches on the last side I sewed because no matter what I did the material just kept shifting.  Ugh!  The material was 28 inches and square when I began, and the finished project ended up being 25X26 inches, and not exactly squared to perfection.

I gleefully snipped the corners, and turned the blanket right side out, happy to be basically done with it.  I wanted to topstitch around the right side to make it look finished.  Then baby brain kicked in.  I walked over to my very hot iron and placed the iron on the silk.

As soon as I did it, I knew the mess I just made.  Ugh!  This project couldn't get worse!  What on earth was I thinking?  I would like to think that my normal non-pregnant/crazy hormonal self would know better, but the girl making this blanket lost her mind a few months back.

Now, to decide if I just toss the mess of a project or try to fix it.  

I ended up sewing ribbon over the corner, skipped the topstitching, and said 'good enough'.

My daughter thinks it's just perfect, and since technically it is from her I will chill out with my perfectionist ways, and be happy she thinks it looks good.

And really, now how closely will a baby be looking?  :)