DIY Handmade Receiving Blankets

When I found out I was pregnant I immediately had a mental list of things I wanted to make.  Most of those items were things I found store bought versions to be useless when Grant was a baby.  Grant was a big baby, over 9lbs, and I found infant towels and receiving blankets to be too small to wrap my little guy up.  I remember using 2 and 3 towels to completely wrap my squirmy little one up after a bath, and I couldn't swaddle him in most receiving blankets because they didn't fit properly either.

I vowed I would not buy either of these items from the stores because it would probably be a waste of our money.  So when Black Friday rolled around this past year I bought 4 yards of gender neutral flannel that was on sale for $1.74/yd. 

I made these two blankets like I made cloth napkins from this site.  If I had a serger it would have taken a whole lot less time.  Unfortunately I don't own one yet so my way takes a little bit longer but for anyone else who doesn't have a serger this way of hemming the blankets makes it so they don't fray.


I didn't take the time to even up all my edges and square them off, mainly because I'm lazy.  I didn't want these blankets to take any more time than necessary since it took me so long to get the fabric out and get started anyways.  I'm not looking for perfection in a blanket like this but if I were giving it as a baby shower gift I would square it all off making it even .  The only thing I noticed about not squaring the edges was the corners don't square perfectly like you see below:

 and when you fold them up all the edges don't match up perfectly. 

Again this doesn't bother me but if it does you, you may want to take the few extra minutes to even your edges out.

Getting this project underway makes me want to start on my other baby projects and I can't wait to wrap my new little one up in one of these.