JoanneS

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions for how to make a heavy blanket for my grandson. I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped and sent it to him. I'll ask them to take a picture of him using it and send it to me.

I decided to make it out of jeans. I bought 10 humungous pairs at Savers on a Wed, 30% off day for seniors. I made alternate 8 inch blocks of pinwheels and 4 patches - all pieces cut with Accuquilt. Without my Accuquilt, my hand would have been paralyzed! My DIL said the recommendation was to make it crib size, so I made it 4 X 7 blocks, with a 3inch border. I sewed leg panels together to make the back. The jeans had been washed so many times, that they had that wonderful smooth feeling that old jeans have.

Next problem was what to use for weights inside the quilt/blanket. The 'real' ones use either smooth, sanitized river rock or plastic pellets. I could not find either (though I could order the pellets from Hobby Lobby). Of course, I needed them yesterday, so I went to Jo Ann's and found 1# packages of plastic beads. Perfect! And washable! I had enough 50% coupons to cut the total cost by $20! I sewed individual 1/2# bags (like bean bags) of flannel (from stash).

I 'birthed' top and back on 3 sides, using 1/2" seams. Then starting on the bottom, I sewed the side seams of the blocks in the first row, added the bags, sewed the top seam; ditto for each row until it was finished. Boyohboy, if you think wrestling with quilting a king size quilt is fun, you should have seen me wrestling with this baby! It weighed 14 pounds when it was finished. But it looks great, and I'm proud of myself for making it.