New Projects

So my boyfriend's mom got me a new sewing machine for Christmas, needless to say I was a tad excited ;)  I've already completed 2 projects on it, and will hopefully have another one done soon, which I will post at that time :)  The first project I did was a casserole dish carrier with 2 pot holders.  I sadly was so excited to give it to my best friend for her birthday it totally slipped my mind to take pictures of the one I made, but you can find the tutorial I followed for the carrier here and the potholders here.  The second project I made was a baby blanket for my boyfriend's cousin and fiance, who are expecting their first child.  I was actually given a bunch fabric last year at some point by my "aunt" (she's related somehow but it's too complicated for me to figure it out on a regular basis so I call her my aunt, I call everybody my aunt and uncle, I think it's a Maine thing haha).  Anywho, I dug through the fabric last week for a totally different project and came across cute little pre-cut flannel squares, perfect for a baby blanket!  And pre-cut...sign me up!  The squares were cut into 6.5" squares (a 1/4 seam allowance on each side so it would equal a 6" square when sewn).  I sewed 5 strips of 6 squares each, then sewed them together so the patterns alternated

.  I also found a yellow piece of flannel in the bag that matched the yellow in the moons perfectly and was big enough to be the back...score!

 I debated between batting and another piece of flannel to go in the middle and decided to go with flannel.  1) I had the flannel on hand and would have had to go shopping for the batting (just being honest lol) and 2) the baby is due in the spring and I wanted the blanket able to be used in the spring and summer too, not too hot and just for winter.  It's "heavier" but cooler.  Weird, but my Nana taught me that trick and it really does work.  Just like in the tutorial for the casserole dish carrier, I put the two right sides of the blanket (the pieces I wanted to be seen) together and the piece of flannel that was on the inside on top, squared up the edges, and sewed it all except for a gap on one side to turn the blanket right side out.  I trimmed the excess fabric from the seams (but not TOO much, because I wanted enough to catch with the top stitch), and cut the corners at an angle.  After I flipped it and got it all flattened out I sewed the gap shut and then kept going around the whole blanket one more time (a top stitch) to make it look like it was on purpose ;)  It also just makes it sturdier.

 I finished it off by tying the blanket in all the corners on the front of the blanket.

 SO much faster than trying to actually quilt it.  I've struggled enough with doing mine, I knew I'd never get it to the poor baby if I tried doing it to his blanket too haha.  The bottom picture is just so you can see that it barely shows through on the back.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, hopefully future Mumma and Daddy will be too! :)  Any baby projects you all have been working on that are super cute?