Designing embroidered blankets for baby girls
New born babies bring happiness galore at home. Abundance of joy, dreams, aspirations are wrapped around these little bundles of joy. As long as we can go back in history, we will see it is a common practice to knit and stitch homemade dresses, sweaters, socks and embroidered baby quilts even before the babies are born. Homemade baby blankets are of great use. They can be made using even the old clothes. It also happens to be a great gift item. Not only it is cheap, it also showcases your creativity and on top of everything your love for the new born. Below are some simple tips which when incorporated while making a homemade embroidered baby blanket can definitely enrich the product as well as the experience of making it.
1. Fabric
Utmost care should be taken while choosing the fabric of the blanket. The babies are soft, tender and way too much sensitive. Coarse fabric materials can make the baby feel uncomfortable. It may also create irritation and rashes. The fabric must be soft and breathable. It is absolutely necessary to always keep the babies in clean and hygienic place. Hence, the fabric must be of washable quality. Best fabric materials are woven fleece and high-quality cotton flannel. Moreover, it’s quite easy to do embroidery over the soft cotton fabric. Not only that, embroidery over the cotton fabric lasts for a longer time. It is advisable not to do embroidery over the knitted blankets. Not only it is a very difficult task to perform, it also doesn’t last long. Reason being, the knitted blankets stretch and loosen up after some time.
2. Colors
In general practice, pastel shades are preferred for baby blankets. As we all now baby pink is associated with girls and blue is associated with the boys. But one should not shy away from using the bright colors. Studies have proved that the babies love bright colors and responds well to them. In case you want to make blankets using printed fabrics, for obvious reasons avoid the larger prints and patterns and go for the smaller prints simply because larger prints and patterns will interfere with your embroidered designs. Smaller prints would let your embroidery stand out.
5. Designs
Here, you need not bind yourself to some stereotypical design and freely let your creativity lose. Always ensure that the thread and the embellishments used must not create any problem to the baby. Embroidering the name of the baby along with its date of birth and birth weight and height have always been a favorite design, nursery images like teddy bears, kittens, puppies, butterflies, flowers and other symbols of infancy are a great hit. As per your choices you can embroider only corners of the blanket or can confine the design at the center. A fancy and cute lace or cloth strip can be used at all the four sides of the blanket. Patch work quilt design is a great option. Here, different squares of cloth with a distinct embroidered design on each can be stitched together to create a beautiful and unique blanket.
6. Transfers
Sewing machine with embroidered function would make your work a lot easier. But in case you do not have one, you can always make use of the embroidery transfers. Embroidery transfers are use to put the designs on the fabrics. Cotton or any soft fabrics are considered best for this purpose as they can easily tolerate the iron heat. However, fleece may be considered good for making baby blankets but are not considered a good fabric when you are using embroidery transfers as they melt or mat down from the iron heat. If you still want to make blanket using fleece then definitely there is a way out. Draw the desired pattern on a tissue paper and then pin it on the fleece to create the pattern. Once done, you can simply unpin the tissue paper.
7. Finishes
Do not forget to finish the edges. It would stop the designs from fraying. Easy to make narrow hems look beautiful on flannel blankets whereas on the fleece blankets, satin edge finishing imparts a very attractive look. Babies tend to cuddle to their blankets therefore make sure that the edges are not sharp and the threads and the embellishments used are of softer quality. In no case they should poke out. Double check to make sure no pins is left behind inside the blanket. Once you are done with it, wash it in mild baby soap, thoroughly dry it. Lastly gift wrap the blanket with utmost love and care. And now you are all set to gift you homemade embroidered blanket to the newborn. The happiness you would receive once the baby would be wrapped in your handmade blanket would be something unparalleled and unmatched.
