Quite a while ago, not long after my kids went back to daycare, one of the daycare workers asked me where I got my
daughter's frog blanket. She said her daughter absolutely loved frogs and she had been on the lookout for a froggy blanket for a while. So, fast forward a few months and I come across my scrap frog flannel. Now the thought had crossed my mind a couple of times to make her a blanket, so when I found the flannel, I thought - why not!? It is always nice to know you are appreciated and she has been so good with my kids, and has given my daughter some hand-me-downs and it is Christmas time! The perfect time for random acts of kindness, as my dad reminded me!
I didn't have very much frog flannel left, but luckily I did have 4 or 5 different kinds, and I used them all! I also had a couple meters of bright green with flowers that I had bought forever ago because I loved it. I used it to pull all the frog flannel together and make it a more little girly. It was a good thing I had that flannel stashed away, otherwise I wouldn't have had enough fabric to make a blanket!
It took me a little while to figure out a pattern with all my different squares. When I did finally did come up with something I was happy with, and I can't believe I'm admitting this, I sewed it together wrong! Somehow the whole pattern was shifted off center and I just don't know what happened! I laid out the top, laid out back, flipped over the the back squares, and moved the top over, sandwiching in the batting. My oldest was helping me, but I was monitoring him closely. There was one time when the boys were driving their trucks over the squares on the floor and they mess up a bunch of them but I thought I had it back together properly. I guess that might explain the last couple of rows, but it certainly doesn't explain the rest of it! Clearly I should not have been sewing and probably sleeping instead! Once the pattern was laid out I was just concentrating on one row at a time and by the time I noticed it was wrong it was almost done and too late to correct it. I didn't have time, or energy to seam rip the whole thing and honestly it turned out fine anyway. So if anyone asks - that is how I planned it!
It is hard to see, but instead of doing the traditional X across the squares, I only sewed across it once and turned each square to create a chevron quilting pattern. (Which also might of contributed to my to troubles - but I thought it would look neat - and it did!) My squares were only 8 inches so I thought it would be enough to hold the batting.
The back...again, I can't explain what happened to the pattern - the blue diamond should be in the middle...
I left it at the daycare for Rachel before Christmas and between sick kids and holidays we haven't been back yet. I did get a Facebook message from her, though, and she said her daughter loves it and takes it everywhere she goes!
