If you’re looking for new ways to add a little pizzazz to a plain or printed fleece blanket, then you’ve come to the right place! These 26 blankets were all embellished in some way to make them truly unique.
#1 - Add a Design with Fleece Shapes
For the solid-colored blankets, we used characters from coloring pages as a simple pattern to cut out pieces of fleece to form layers of the design. We zigzag-stitched the pieces together and then zigzag-stitched the design onto the blanket.
#2 - Embellish the Blanket with Fleece Shapes
Some blankets already had a cute design, so we simply cut out pieces of fleece to accent them then zigzag-stitched them onto the blanket, like these bananas.
#3 - Stitch Around the Existing Design
On some of the blankets with printed designs, we zigzag-stitched around the design to make it “pop” out.
#4 - Embellish the Design with Metallic Thread
Since many of the blanket already had busy printed designs, all it really needed was a little something sparkly! We hand-stitched with metallic thread around certain parts of the design to really make it shine.
#5, #6, #7 & #8 - Add Tassles, Bows, Pom Poms & Buttons
Several blankets have 3-D accents such as tassels (elephant tails), pompoms (lion’s tail), buttons (duck eyes), bows (balloon bouquet) and sequins (see Seahorses Blanket).
#9 & #10 - Add a Fleece Border and Trims
For blankets with busy patterns, we added (using zigzag stitch) a coordinating color of fleece as a border then attached cute trims and rickrack.
#11, #12 & #13 - Blanket Stitches, Decorative Stitch, Straight Stitch
Sometimes simplicity is key, so we simply stitched around the blanket’s edge using a decorative stitch, blanket stitch or simple straight stitch (see Little Lion Blanket).
#14 Wavy Blanket Edges
The Alphabet Stamp blanket and Polka Dot blanket both feature a cute wavy border that was cut along two sides.
#15 Think Outside-The-Box
Thinking “outside-the-box” on several blankets resulted in adorable designs and techniques that we’ll continue to use on future blankets! The Cars & Trucks blanket features a road-like dashed line around the border which was achieved by cutting slits in the blue area and weaving white ribbon in and out. The Rainbow blanket not only has a fleece rainbow and sun sewn on it, but also features multicolored yarn fringe tassels along each corner.
We hope these techniques inspire you to turn your mass-production fleece blankets into a one-of-a-kind blankets that someone you know will treasure!
