Oooooh, aren’t babies the best? Not only are they the sweetest cutest things on earth, they are the best excuse for making hand made gifts. In this case, my new born niece got a strawberry-banana-marshmallow colored hat and matching blanket. Well, technically she only got the hat because the blanket is not quite done, but she’ll get it soon, I promise.

The hat is a pattern I used before for my winter hats this year, but I finally got around to writing it up and posting it, so here goes!

When my sister was born I noticed that babies spend much more time playing with the tags on toys than with the actual toys. Even at that young age (this was 1998, and I was 16 at the time) I thought that there should be toys made entirely from tags! What a stroke of genius! Well, apparently it was a good idea, because somebody else thought of it, and tag blankets are now sold everywhere. I even got one from my mother when my own daughter was born.

But! I will not let such a small thing hinder my creative efforts! And when the chance came, I realized that tag blankets are a quick and easy baby gift, and – being handmade – much appreciated. I made a few from scrap fabric I had lying around before realizing I had lovely scraps left over from the soft baby blocks I shared with you last post, and that this would be a perfect use for them.

So, here we go.

I love precuts. They’re like getting a selection of chocolates, each one tasty on it’s own, but together – a celebration of sweets! And, unlike eating all those chocolates, precuts don’t have a single calorie in them. Obviously, precuts are more expensive per-yard, but I wouldn’t buy that many yards of fabric… Instead, I get a large selection of various fabrics and get to enjoy all of the patterns (and solids).

For this project I used a charm pack from the Moda Lollipop Collection (42 5” pieces), I got it from Fabric.com, but it’s been a while and I’m not sure if it’s still available.

You’ll need 36 pieces for making 6 blocks, but don’t throw away the scraps! We’ll be using them for part 2 of this project – a matching tag blanket. We’ll also use 4 more pieces for the back of the tag blanket, but that’s not strictly necessary, you can use other fabric if you like (I often use minky).

Aren’t those colors great?

So, let’s get started!