Receiving blanket for Madeline

May 2011

This receiving blanket for the newest member of the Rodgers family was made from a single layer of incredibly plush flannel. This fabric is sooooo velvety!

The alphabet is "Elegant Rose Alphabet" from Sew Weird.

I sewed my little personal pirate tag into the hem, so she'd be reminded of her piratey Aunt, who made it. :-) The small pirate design came from SewForum.com, a machine embroidery forum that I participate in.

They have a section where participants can upload designs that they have created for the use by the rest of us. There are some very, very talented amateur digitizers out there! One such generous person digitized a VERY small skull-and-crossbones.

Well, I collect virtually everything piratey and I've had this one for some time. Sadly, I can't find it on the forum any longer, so it might have been removed. In any case, it's VERY small ... less than 1/2" square.

How do YOU hem your single layer cloth items?

And did you notice how FLAT all those corners are? That's because I mitered them! It's not difficult.

When hemming single layers, you can do it the quick and dirty way that results in a nasty, icky, horrid LUMP at each corner. Don't do that, I implore you!

a failed technique:
the preferred technique: With just spending a little more time and effort, you can have beautifully mitered corners that are FLAT.

a mitered corner, front and reverse: .

Here's a tutorial for napkin mitered corners: How to do a mitered corner for a single layer (No webpage, just a downloadable tutorial in PDF format).

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