Minky Blankies: The ANIMAL CRACKER is here!

You guys!  The ANIMAL CRACKER is here!  She's called Anna Ruth now that she's born though and is happy and healthy (as is my sister Becky).  Mostly she sleeps and poops, but soon I will teach her to sew.  I, personally, feel that she is the cutest baby ever, although I think most people feel that way about the babies in their vicinity.  I am really very distressed that she lives three hours away.

Anyway, I have wanted to make something out of minky for a while now (just feeling those fabrics is enough to make me want to turn into Linus), so I decided to make a blanket for Anna.  It's probably not necessary since the girl already has more quilts than any one baby can possibly need, but I figured something soft wouldn't go amiss.   Besides,  Becky was anxious for some girly things that weren't pink.  While I was at it, I decided to also make one for Kenda, who recently had a baby and STILL, even though she had just given birth, remembered to send me some awesome scraps of elephant fabric.

I snagged some light green Minky at JoAnn's (on sale!) and some fun giraffe fabric and owl fabric for the backs. I free-motion quilted the baby's names on the fabric and then assembled them more or less as described here.  The only thing I did different was embed folded over satiny ribbons in two sides for the babies to suck on or play with.

I was so pleased with the way they turned out until I tossed them in the washer to get rid of the sizing etc.  Sadly, we had previously done white laundry with bleach and there must have been bleach splatters on the surface of the washer because when I pulled out the owl one, it was all covered in terrible bleached out spots!  The giraffe one was ok, luckily.  I had to go back to JoAnns to grab some more fabric but alas the cute owls were gone.  I grabbed some adorable frogs instead and was able to re-use the green minky since it didn't have bleach spots.    I'd also observed (as I should have realized before), that the cotton shrunk and the minky didn't, so the minky was a little bigger than the cotton on the giraffe one.  When I re-made the second blanket, I pre-washed the frog cotton to avoid that.

They're so soft and fun, I hope the little babies for whom they're destined can enjoy them!

And PS- watch out for shrinking cotton and horrid bleach!