Make It More Personal With Custom Blankets

Shirts would lose sleeves, front tabs and buttons; skirts, dresses and jeans would lose waistbands, pockets and zippers BUT you must save the buttons and zippers for another clothing project.

Aside from serving its purpose as a blanket, a quilt can be a perfect gift for a new bride or a new mother. Many cultures today provide hand crafted quilt's as gifts to new brides on their wedding day as a rite of passage. Many quits are displayed on racks or walls and used as art. They can provide a sense of comfort to just about any space.

For quilting beginners there are kits available that contain all of the material needed to create a quilt. These kits include step by step instructions to help you make the perfect hand crafted quilt for the new addition. Kits are also great because they help new quilters learn the basics of quilting, enabling them to create other, more personalized quilts in the future. While experienced quilters are often aware of the hard work and materials that go into creating the perfect quilt; creating the perfect baby blanket can still be difficult.

A century ago, cigar companies tied a bright colored silk ribbon around a bundle of cigars. Women stitched them together with black or colored embroidery floss stitches onto a fabric foundation block. They were not cut or curved, but placed side by side. Cigar company ribbons had fancy logos and used attractive fonts in black ink on yellow or orange ribbons. The various advertising on the ribbons added decoration to the quilt block. Green, pink and purple ribbons were occasionally used in the block designs, signifying a rare cigar.

Blanket Quilt Wheelchair quilts. People in wheelchairs suffer from the hard surface of the chair and a quilted blanket made to measure for the wheelchair could make all the difference. When thinking of wheelchairs also think about carry bags that could be secured to the chair or arm rests, etc. These could also be made to measure and produced in startling colors to standout and give the wheelchair a bit of personality.

Another way to customize a blanket is by including text in it. This may be a favorite punch line; a line from a song; a secret code between the two of you; a meaningful date; or even a surname.

Have you ever needed to throw together a quick quilt? Many quilting pros laugh at the notion, but sometimes we need a quick gift to give and want to make it personal. Lap quilts and baby quilts are very easy to create on an embroidery machine.

I begged my mom to give me the quilt, and luckily, she did. I now treasure this quilt, thinking of all the memories stitched into this quilt, each stitch done with love.