pulling the fleece over your eyes...

Heto wants to know how to make a fleece blanket. And I need something to blog about today. Yay!

Making these throws is ridiculously easy. So easy that even I - having been born without the sewing gene that so many in my family seem to possess so effortlessly - can make a perfectably respectable (not to mention warm and cozy) fleece blanket in one evening. Amazing!

All you need is two complementary pieces of fleece of equal sizes, and a scissors. I used one piece of patterned fleece and one piece of solid. If you are fancy, you can replace the scissors with a rotary cutter and cutting board. The fleece can be any size - it should be the size you want the finished blanket to be, plus a 5-inch margin for the ties. (If you want the ties shorter and stubbier, use 3 or 4-inch margin; if you want long flappy lop-eared ties, then you can go 6 or 7 inches.)

Line up the two pieces of fleece, wrong sides together, and first cut out 5-inch squares from each corner. This leaves you with the body of the blanket and four long flaps, one on each side. Holding the two pieces of fleece together, cut the flaps into 1-inch strips (for those who need a visual: it's kinda like what you do when you're selling something and you print your phone number a dozen times along the bottom so people can rip one off).

Then tie the strips together, each time using one strip from the bottom fleece and the corresponding strip from the top fleece. You can do this as you go along or after you've finished all of the cutting.

Easy, breezy, beautiful!

(PHOTOS TO COME)