Candy, Cake, and Crafts: Fleece No-Sew Blanket Tutorial

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Fleece No-Sew Blanket Tutorial

As promised, here's the fleece no-sew blanket tutorial! It's a bit picture heavy so hang on if your computer takes a bit to load.

This blanket, as I said before, was for my little niece's birthday. *Isn't she adorable?* I wanted something cutesy for a little girl and Hello Kitty was perfect! I was lucky to find both fleeces in the remnant section because Hello Kitty prints are pretty pricey. So yay!
Here's what I used:

1 yard Hello Kitty Fleece
1 yard Blizzard Fleece - I used a dark pink color
Ruler
Scissors
Low Tac Painter's Tape

Take your 2 fabrics and and line them up wrong sides together. Spread them out on the floor and make sure everything lays flat. At this point, if your fabric is not even, cut the edges so they are fairly straight and the 2 fleeces are the same size.

With your ruler, measure 3" in from the edge and mark it using your painter's tape. Do this on all 4 sides.

Once you have marked off 3" all around, at each corner where the tape meets and makes a square, you will want to cut off the fleece squares.

Starting at the edge of one of the cut of corner squares, line up your ruler at the edge of the painter's tape and start cutting strips that are 1.5" wide. So cut at 1.5", 3", 4.5", 6" and so on. Cut up only to the painter's tape. Don't go past it. You are trying to make even strips to tie.

Keep cutting the strips across but pay attention when you get near the other end that your last strip cut will be 1.5" wide. You'll know by your ruler if the edge lines up to one of the numbers that would be a 1.5" calculation. In my picture below, you'll see my edge ends at 12, so it's perfect. IF yours doesn't end at a correct number making your strip either too big or too small, you can "fudge" your ruler a little each time you cut your strip by SLIGHTLY moving it either inward or outward at each cut so the ruler moves each time until you get to a correct measurement. Understand?

Once you have cut all your strips, now it's time to go back to each one and cut a vertical slit in the middle of each strip. The next couple of steps is the time consuming part. Most people just tie a knot on each strip but I think it looks so much more cleaner and professional the way I "tie" my strips together.

So take the top fleece strip and slightly fold it up towards the painter's tape (as shown below) and then cut a small vertical cut in the middle of the strip.

Flip that strip up so it is out of your way. See the slit?

Now gently put a small fold on the bottom fleece strip (as shown below) and cut a small vertical slit into it. Try to make it so that the vertical cuts are in about the same location in the middle of the the strip.

Mine looks about right. If it's not, that's ok but if you can keep them close to the same proximity.

Place the top fleece over the bottom fleece again.

Now take a hold of both fleece and take a corner and insert it into the slits.

Pull the edge of both fleece through that slit, pulling it all the way through.

Don't worry! The fleece won't rip regardless of how small your hole is. You don't want a big hole/slit because the "knots" could slip out easily. Better it is a smaller slit to really hold it. So pull that fabric through.

Pull it all the way out and look how it "knots" itself! Isn't it pretty? The color just pops and will give it a nice border.

Continue the slit cutting and knotting all the way on the one edge. Then repeat the strip cutting, slit cutting, and knotting around the other edges until you have done all 4 edges.

Once you have "knotted" all the strips, remove the painter's tape and tah-dah! Your blanket is done! And remember those big square empty corners? Where are they now? All tied-up and evened out. You can't event tell there were 3" squares cut off from each corner. Cool, huh?