Regular Contributor, Michelle James brings us a DIY tutorial for Warm and Cozy Guest Room Throw Blankets.

 

 

Warm and Cozy Guest Room Throw Blankets

A DIY perfect for cold Winter days

I hope everyone had a happy holiday. Are you gearing up for a fun New Year’s Eve? We usually have a pretty quiet night full of food and movies.

It is getting a little cold here in Iowa these days so I decided to make some fleece throw blankets for the guest room. I call them “warm and cozy guest room throw blankets”. How is that for a title?

 

Jeff and I broke down and purchased a Silhouette Cutting Machine. They were on such a great deal; we could not pass it up. So, I am showing you how I cut out fabric using the machine. It was pretty slick.

I purchased the fabric stabilizer and the fabric blade to use.

I wanted these throw blankets to match the Welcome Pillow I had made, and I wanted the same font. When I made the pillow, we did not have the cutting machine; so, I printed out the words, cut them out, traced them onto the fabric then cut them out of the fabric. This was fine, but I really wanted to see if using the machine would work.

I used Glamour Brush font which is one I purchased as part of a bundle a while back. I love the look of it. So, this is the font I chose for the throw blankets too.

One thing I learned, when I practiced cutting this out on paper, was that the distressing cuts as well. I did not want that so I used the eraser tool on the software program for the machine to get rid of the distressing. It looked like this on my screen.

 

You can see there are a couple of broken red lines. I knew the machine would not cut that part, but I was okay with that.

Then, I needed to get my fabric ready to cut. The fabric is the dust ruffle from the bed set I purchased for this room. I did not want to use it, but it has come in handy for these projects. It matches the room, but isn’t overdone.

I cut a piece the size I needed, then cut a piece of the fabric stabilizer just slightly smaller. I placed the stabilizer with the paper side up to the back of the fabric and ironed it in place. I removed the paper backing to reveal this shiny surface.

 

The shiny part goes down onto the mat. So, the right side of the fabric is facing up.

 

 

I just made sure it was nice and secure. These mats are new; so, I did not have any problems with the fabric moving around.

This is what I got when it was cut.

 

Now, remember that there were a couple of places that did not cut due to the “broken” lines in the font? I just used my scissors to finish them, and it worked great!

Then, I was ready to stitch them onto my fleece. For these throws I am using orange on one side and gray on the other to match the room. They are pretty small, but they are just to place over a lap or to throw over some shoulders. So, small was okay with me.

The fabric stabilizer allowed me to iron the words onto the fleece before stitching. It held them in place so there was no need for pins or glue.

I used a regular straight stitch on the sewing machine and went really slow. If you look closely you will definitely see some flaws, but all in all, I think I did a pretty good job.

Then, I just stitched the two fleece pieces together. I may go back and stitch across the whole thing a couple of times so that when they are washed they won’t separate and get weird but I haven’t decided for sure yet.

What do you think?

 

I hope you liked them and thanks so much for stopping by. Happy New Year!

 

~Michelle

Visit Michelle at her blog, Michelle James Designs!

 

 

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~Lorelai

 

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