So one day while I was flipping through a celebrity tabloid I saw a picture of one of Britney Spears' boys with this awesome blanket. I googled the blanket and found the site that sells them for $125!!! I knew I could easily make one as it was only bandanas sewn together. So I made a trip to hobby lobby and picked up lots and lots of bandanas for only $0.10 a piece (I think they were mis-priced :p)
So now, onto how to make your blanket like a poor college student.
First off: gather your ten cent bandanas
(pile of bandanas)
You need to prewash your fabric so when you wash the blanket your colors don't all bleed together and your fabric is preshrunk. Now, if you are a poor college student like me you wash your fabric in your bathroom sink because all you have is coin-op laundry at your Apt. and you spent your last quarters at the meters (that you're not supposed to park at) on campus.) Btw: this is seriously how I do laundry on the weekends.
so prewash your fabric like so...yikes look at that water afterwards!
Now you need to dry your fabric. If you're unfortunate like me you'll have two problems here 1. the dryer at your apt is broken and 2. you don't have any coins to use it anyway (see above). So what do you do?
you make a clothesline out of craft cord and your dining room chairs and use a box fan to dry your fabric of course!
Your fabric will probably be all wrinkled now so you'll need to iron it.
here we are ironing our bandanas, and now we have a nice neat stack.
What next? We sew them all together like quilt blocks. I used 6 bandanas and sewed them in 3 rows of 2.
the top of the blanket all sewn together. (With Mr. Boy George all cuddled up underneath. silly kitty)
Repeat the above steps for the back.
Next we scrounge up some batting. (I was lucky enough to find a package in my parents' basement). Next you go get something to drink and comeback to find this...
Awww he looks so cozy...too bad, time to sew.
Since both top and bottom look pretty much exactly the same choose one side and baste your batting to the wrong side of the fabric. Flip it over, lay your top layer right sides together, pin and sew. Make sure you capture the batting in your seams and be sure to leave an opening to turn the blanket.
Next turn the blanket right side out. Tuck your edges under at the opening and topstitch closed then continue the topstich all the way around your blanket. When you're finished you should end up with something like this:
Voila, a blanket...all for $1.20! Can't beat that.
