Tagged with 'haberdashery'

It’s official, Spring has sprung! At Abakhan we love to the feel the suns rays on our skin, but that doesn’t mean we start neglecting sewing and all things craft as soon as we get some nice weather. In fact, we see it as an excuse for the perfect project: creating your own picnic blanket. So, let’s get started.

What you will need:

Fabric Wadding Thread Buttons Scissors, Pins, Tape Measure, & Sewing machine/needles

How-to:

• Think about how big you want your picnic blanket to be. (Ours is 130cm x 160cm with a 1cm border.) • Cut 2 pieces of fabric and your wadding to exactly the same size. • Place the 2 pieces of fabric on top of each other. (If the fabric you are using is patterned ensure you place the pattern sides face to face). • Place the wadding on top and pin the 3 pieces of material together. • Sew all of your sides together 1cm from the edge of the material leaving a gap on one side large enough to turn the blanket inside out. This will leave the wadding inside, sandwiched between your 2 pieces of fabric. • Fold the edges of the open side in on itself and iron down as well as ironing all the other sides. • Pin the open edge shut and sew together to seal all 4 sides.

This is your blanket – sewing a border around the outside roughly 1cm from the edge of the material works well for reinforcement as well as aesthetics.

Hopefully, your arms will be laden with picnic goodies, so we think it’s a great idea to make a handle for your new picnic blanket. The first part of your handle acts as a wrap to hold the blanket together when it’s safely rolled up:

• Cut 2 pieces of fabric long enough to wrap all the way around the middle of your blanket when it is rolled. (Ours is 64cm x 20cm.) • Follow the instructions above. • Create two small rectangular templates for button holes at the end of this piece of material. Cut through these templates to feed the buttons through later. • Sew your buttons in place at the other end of the wrapping material, directly below your button holes.

You will then need to create a smaller handle to fix to the top of this fabric:

• To make the handle for your blanket follow exact instructions without the wadding. (Ours measures 4cm x 20cm) • Fold 0.5cm of each end of the material and sew this onto the larger part of the handle.

So, there you have it, roll your blanket up and off you go to enjoy the sunshine!