This page is for events requiring special instructions in advance of the actual event, such as making fleece blankets for Faith Homes (below).

In November and December, we will be making "no sew" blankets for the girls and women of Faith Homes. These are the same as what we did last year, and when we approached Faith Homes for a hands-on project for parishioners this year, they said:

The blankets your members made last year were a wonderful hit with our girls. Since almost everyone who was here last Christmas has graduated out of our programs, could you make more blankets for these new girls?

So we will! There are blanket making parties scheduled at church for Nov. 12th and Dec. 3rd after the 10 am service.

Directions for making the blankets can be downloaded from here as a Word file or here as an Adobe PDF file and are printed below.

NO-SEW FLEECE BLANKET

Baby blanket:

1 yard each of two coordinating fleece fabrics. Make sure fleece is at least 54” wide, and preferably 58/60” wide.

Blanket for child/adult:

1-1/3 yards each of two coordinating fleece fabrics. Make sure fleece is at least 54” wide, and preferably 58/60” wide.

Directions:

 (Note: I have been told by a clerk at Hancock Fabrics that they spray the fabric warehouses with chemicals to discourage rodents, and that we should wash the fleece before making the blankets to rid it of these chemicals.)

Place one piece of fleece with right side down on a large flat surface. Smooth out wrinkles. Place second piece of fleece, with right side up, on top of the first piece, smoothing and adjusting edges of the two pieces to match. (Fleece doesn’t always have a right and wrong side; so don’t worry if you can’t tell which side is the right side.) Trim off selvages (the machine edges). Also trim so that the two pieces of fleece are the same size, and the sides are straight and aligned.

With the two pieces of fleece still together and laying flat, cut out a notch at each corner about 3” square. Then, with the fleece still together and laying flat, cut fringe around all four sides. CUT BOTH PIECES OF FABRIC TOGETHER, SO THE FRINGE MATCHES UP EXACTLY. The fringe should be about 3” long, and about 1” wide. (As you get to the corners, you may need to adjust the width of the fringe so that you don’t come out with one piece that is really wide or really skinny.)

This is a very forgiving process, and minor bobbles in the cutting process won’t be noticeable in the finished product!

Once the entire fringe has been cut, it is time to start knotting. (If you want, at this point, you can carefully pick up the fleece as a unit and set it on your lap while you knot the fringe. The fleece will stay lined up if you aren’t overly rough with it.) Use an overhand or square knot. Starting at one corner, and making sure you have the corresponding fringe pieces from each fleece side, tie them into a square knot. Don’t pull the knot overly tight, or it will make the fleece bunch. Continue around the entire blanket, making sure not to skip any fringe pieces. Take particular care around the corners, where is it especially easy to get the fringe mismatched.

If you tie each set of fringe the same way (for example, left over right and right over left), it will be nicely uniform.

If the edges of the blanket seem bunched or gathered, when you are all done knotting the fringe, just take the ends of each side and stretch them apart to smooth it out. The fleece is very resilient, and although it might “pop” a bit when you do this, it won’t tear.