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Polar Blankets for Cold Winter Nights

by | Dec 21, 2018 | Applique, Free Patterns, Home Decor Projects, Posts by Kira, Sewing with Cuddle/ Minky Fabric Projects | 0 comments

Why does it always take me so long to get the house ready for Christmas? I’m always doing new projects so it feels like it takes half the month before I’m finally ready! It doesn’t help that I have 7 boxes of Christmas decorations because I decorate pretty much every room in the house!

These are some of the projects I finished this year and last year. So this year I wanted to really go all out on the girl’s room. They have a cute little purple tree (we used at a quilt show a few years ago!) with silver, pink, purple, and teal decorations. I wanted them to have cute blankets for their bed, but since I’m always so short on time, and I have to make 3 of everything, I wanted something super simple! Luckily my mom was in town for the weekend, so I made it even easier on myself by passing off the task to her! Look how cute they turned out, and the girls love them!

We decided to make a super simple blanket from a fleece that would match the colors in their room. We trimmed the blankets with strips of Cuddle and added some of my winter appliqués. I swear my mom finished all 3 in just a few hours!

If you want to make a similar blanket, its really quick and easy! Here’s what you do:

  1. 1. Cut your fleece to the size you want. We used 2 yards per blanket, and basically just cut off the selvage on both sides which made the blankets about 58″ x 72″
  2. 2. Cut your Cuddle trim strips, we used white Rose Cuddle. Cut enough width of fabric strips to go around the perimeter of the blanket. Our blanket needed about 4.5 strips to go around the blanket. The strips are 2″ tall by width of fabric.
  3. 3. Next you will want to round each of the corners of the fleece. We used something handy like a plate (a bowl would work too) to round the corners. Just place the plate in the corner and use a rotary cutter to cut the corner off.
  4. 4. Then sew the trim strips together along the 2″ side, making one long strip.
  5. 5. Pin or clip (with Cover Wonder clips) the long strip of Cuddle along the edge of the blanket. Pin the right side of the Cuddle strip to the right side of the fleece blanket. Leave 3″ of strip on each end, and begin sewing down the strip using a 1/2″ seam.
  6. 6. Once the strips meet up, with the tails still not sewn down meet them together and sew the 2″ seam that sews the strips together. Then finish sewing the strip to the edge of the blanket. 
  7. 7. Open the trim strip and wrap around the edge to the back so the right side is out on both sides. Pin or clip the trim strip down around the edge. The back will have the raw edge of the Cuddle strip exposed.
  8. 8. Now all you need to do is stitch in the ditch from the front which should catch the raw edge of the strip on the back sewing the trim in place.
  9. 9. As you are going around the corners make sure you don’t stretch the Cuddle strip, if anything you want to push extra fabric into the seam around the corners.
  10. 10. Now you can be done here, or to make the blanket special while still keeping it simple you can add a fun appliqué! I let my girls pick their favorite one from the Polar Opposite Pals template pack and we used a variety of flat and textured Cuddle fabrics to make each of the appliqués, and sewed them to one corner of each blanket.
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Our Polar Opposite Pals make the perfect Christmas or Winter addition to any project! You can buy the template pack as a downloadable or printed copy:

Now my girls have cute Polar fleece blankets with Polar animals to keep them warm though the cold Colorado winter nights! We hope this helps inspire a super easy and quick winter/Christmas themed project for you!

And lastly as we enter the holiday season I found this quote that I liked by Edith Wharton (an American novelist) that says “There are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle, or be the mirror that reflects it.” Hopefully we can find ways of spreading light in this world by making good, or reflecting it.

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