What's the perfect picnic blanket size?
 

My younger brother is getting married in 2 months and I do wedding quilts generally as gifts. I can almost guarantee he and his new wife won't put one on their bed as they change decor about every year and I don't want it to end up in a closet forever. They're also backpacking through Europe for a 20 day honeymoon. Needless to say they are adventurous so I thought I'd make them a picnic blanket and give it to them with a nice basket set. What's a good size? I'd like it to be comfortable for up to 4 people without being cumbersome to take along. I'll probably do some kind of handle/sling that it can roll up in for travel so they can throw it in the car and use it where ever they want.

For Christmas, a friend gave us 2 tickets to an outdoor concert venue and an Orvis picnic quilt. It's about 60X60 seems about the right size.

This is one of the great uses for the square quilts that so many do not like. I would say somewhere between 60-68 inches square would give more than enough room to seat 4 with the food in the middle. Love your gift idea....i gave a picnic basket set (with dishes and silverware, etc) as a gift once and they loved it.

http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2014/04/...picnic-quilts/ here is a cute one.

http://www.shopmartingale.com/martingale-freebies.html there is a picnic quilt in the freebies 64 1/2 by 64 1/2

I was going to suggest a 60 x 60 also.

I made a scrappy one for a nephew and his wife. My nephew is really tall so I made it pretty big. I wanted it big enough that they could lay on it. I'm thinking it was something like 80 by 80. They love it.

you could make it like the ones for kids where they fold up kinda into a pillow ...and put some handles on it

I made the picnic quilt with the red, green, blue and yellow jelly roll strips using Cherries Jubilee.
This is a really cute pattern and quick from Martingales site.

Jill M.
N. Tx

Make sure that what ever you use is very light weight. Luggage to Europe is 50 lbs per bag. And if they are going to back pack they won't want a lot of bags.