So Sew Retired: Getting to That Taggy Blanket

As a grandmother wondering -- Why didn't some of the wonderful thingies exist when I had my children. One of the things my daughter uses that I like are the Dr. Brown's botttles. (Yes, she breast feeds but she has to supplement with formula and she will being going back to work). Maybe my son's colic wouldn't have been so bad with Dr Brown's, though we tried almost everything to help eliminate it.

Other things I like are the new cloth all-in-one-diapers with pre-folds or inserts such as BumGenius, Flips, Thirsties, and many others. I like making the all-in-one-diaper, also. And, of course, they have developed a home diaper sprayer to clean the poop off the diaper. Oh, and you can still use diaper pins but there are the wonderful Snappi Diaper Fasteners.

Then there are the wipe warmers with cloth wipes. When my daughter mentioned this, I thought she had gone too far in this "green movement". Turns out to be a great idea. She uses the Prince Lionheart warmer but there are many other brands. She has a bundle of baby wash cloths which are soaked with a homemade baby wipe solution. The baby wipe solution in the warmer contains a few drops Lavender essential oil, baby oil, Dr Bronner's liquid castile soap, and water.

I just love all these new products.

Another thing I just love are the tag blankets. Yep, I actually knitted two baby blankets, a yellow hooded baby blanket and another banket from Ralvery. The problem is that my grandson may never use the blankets because he was born in the summer.

Then I learned about tag blankets.

Before my grandson was born, I ordered some fat quarters from Spoonflower. Had no idea what I was going to do with them. I saw the prints and knew my daughter would love the patterns and colors. When she begin talking about tag blankets, I then realized what I wanted to do with the fat quarters.
Tag blankets are wonderful for infants and toddlers. The tags can help with hand and eye coordination and muscle development. Toys can be attached to the tags for stimulation and play.

This is how I made my tag blankets. It is not the only way but I had some thin quilt batting and cotton flannel I need to use up so I machine quilted the tag blankets. It is made the exact size of the fat quarter which will make the finished blanket approximately 18x18-inches. It can be made larger using other fabrics. Rather than use flannel, chenille can be used, which will give the blanket more interesting texture. I am not using it because I am trying use what I have on-hand. To do this I need the following materials.

Materials:

Fat quarter
Quilt batting (it is the white material pinned to the wrong side of fat quarter)
Cotton flannel (shows as yellow in picture)
Ribbon and rick rack for the tags

Directions:

Pin the quilt batting to the wrong side of the fat quarter as shown in the materials photo.
Pin the tags as shown in the photo to the right side of fat quarter with tag loops laying on fat quarter as shown.

At this point, if you choose, you can baste the tags on the batting and fat quarter
Lay the cotton flannel on the right side of the fat quarter on the tags. Pin the cotton flannel. Note in the photo below that there is a batting layer, a fat quarter level, the tags and now the cotton flannel.

With a pencil, mark where the flannel will be stitched to all the layers.
Stitch on the pencil marks, making sure to leave a 4-5-inch gap to turn the blanket right side out.

It is a good idea to stitch the corners again to reinforce them.
Look inside and check seams to make sure there are no white margins if using a fat quarter with white margins. If all is good, clip corners to remove excess bulk and trim seams.