Quick project for the children.

I did some sewing this weekend, quick projects which are so nice and rare for me to do.
It all started on a trip to the fabric store with my daughter. As most 2 year olds will do, she was running ahead of me saying "I shopping for you" and picked out two remnants: yellow minky and bears in aviator caps on a pink background.
When we got them home she proudly showed them to her brothers, Brother Bear thought the bear fabric was for him, so I cut it into 2 pices and they each had a 30" square, not really big enough as a blanket.

The next time I was at the fabric store with my daughter and Brother Bear, they each picked out more remnants. Bear picked out the pink John Deer fabric and I tossed in the turtles.

Then the fabric sat, the children would use them as blankets, and I washed them several times.
Finally I had enough and got out the graph paper, measured each piece and devised a cutting layout to make their blankets.

They were sewn up in a day.
This is my daughter's with the purple back

 Brother Bear has the John Deer back.

Then I had to make one for the eldest. The next day I took him to the fabric store and he picked out some fabric. And some ribbon. We washed the fabric and I sewed up the blanket that day, I decided to use the ribbon to spell out his name and the hand sewing that on took longer, so it wasn't a 1 day project.
This was his blanket before I added his name to the center panel in ribbon
The red dog fabric is the backing, it is about 90" long, so a very long blanket!

 Click to read how I applied the letters.

I started with the trusty old graph paper. ( I love this stuff!) and decided on a letter height of 8" I then drew out my letters to utilize the 1" ribbon.
I tried to fold over the ribbon as much as possible to limit the potential for raveling.

I do not make a habit of posting my children's names online, so I won't show you the completely finished blanket, but I will show you two of the letters A & N
I am lucky that his name could be made with straight lines, not requiring curves!

I pined the ribbon to the paper (and into the bed) tucking 1/2" under at the ends.

 I used regular scotch tape to hold the ends in place.
The top of the A is folded, the cross bar is a separate piece.

The top of the N is folded.

 I sewed the folds down before applying the letters to the blanket.

Then I hand sewed the Letters to the blanket.

So now my children have their own special blankets, which is good since it is starting to get colder already. They are going to need the extra blankets since we now live in a climate that snows and freezes. I can't wait to toss them out in the snow for the first time.