Flannel and Minky Blanket

For Harper's first birthday present I made her a two sided blanket.  The front is flannel with her name on it and the back is a minky swirl in pinks and yellows. Kelly loves paisley prints, so I knew when I found this print on Etsy, it would be the perfect choice.  Plus the theme for Harper's party was You Are My Sunshine and lemonade stand, so the sunflowers in the print made it even more special.

I made quilted letters to attach to the blanket.  Click here to read the tutorial on how to make them.

I've always had a difficult time working with minky.  A few weeks ago while surfing some of my favorite blogs, I saw a post on using basting spray while sewing with minky.
I used my kitchen table to work on, and spread out the minky first with the right side up.  I placed the flannel print face side down...

I bought my basting adhesive at Joann's with a 50% coupon.  It's kind of expensive at $12.00 a can, so the coupon really helped.  It was totally worth it and will now be a new staple in my craft room.

I smoothed out both pieces of fabric and then folded the flannel piece half way over so I could spray baste the front side of it.  I sprayed it heavily and then smoothed it back in place, then repeated the other side...

No straight pins were needed.  The basting adhesive held really well while I sewed the two pieces of fabric together....

I then trimmed the seams to approximately 1/8th inch......

And then turned the project right side out.  The adhesive spray made the fabrics very "tacky" so it took a little extra work to get this accomplished and push out the corners.  But again, so worth it as opposed to using a hundred pins with the minky to keep it in place.

Next I pinned the opening closed by folding both pieces of fabric in and securing with straight pins.......

I then wanted to top stitch around the perimeter of the blanket so I smoothed it out and pinned it to keep the layers in place.  The flannel still has the tackiness to it, so again, a little hard to get it smoothed out.

I found this colorful yarn to tie the blanket with at Joann's and was excited to get to this part of the project.  I loved that the yarn had the colors of the flannel.  But it was not to be.  It turned out that the yarn was just too thick to pull through the flannel and the minky....

So I searched through my craft room and found some Vanna White green yarn that would work.  Not as colorful or puffy, but it did the job well enough....

I spaced out with my ruler where I wanted each tie spot to be at and double knotted each one....

I then ran the blanket through a cycle of wash and dry to remove the spray adhesive and here's the completed blanket.  The size is 41" X 53".  It turned out great and Kelly loved it and Harper will get a lot of use out of it in the years to come....

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