We interrupt the scheduled selfish sewing...

... to show you a baby gift I made for my cousin's long - awaited newborn baby.

I made a receiving blanket which I originally found in a tutorial from Saints and Pinners (but Handmade Jane also has a good one). 

I usually use a metre of winceyette and a metre of cotton, cut in half lengthwise. This gives a good size for pram or buggy and is also great for swaddling if the baby likes that.

To make the applique letters I found a font in Word that was quite clean and chunky (you don't want fancy curls or serifs for this) and increased it to the size I wanted. I  drew around the letters on the reverse of the paper and traced these off onto the paper side of some fusible Web. I normally have to spend ages thinking about this to get them the right way round! Then I cut the letters out roughly and fused them onto the reverse of some fabric scraps. I played about with the placement to get them far enough from the edge to allow for stitching the layers together and top stitching. Then I ironed them on.

Using a fairly wide zig zag ( this was 4 mm wide and 1 mm long) I stitched around the edge of the letters. No fancy presser feet for this - I used my normal zig zag foot. My machine deals with this fine but if you want to try, go slow and practice on a scrap first to see how much you need to manhandle the fabric to keep the lines straight. I swapped the dot of the I for a button (sewn securely by machine).

Then i placed the top and backing right sides together (you can trim to size if you need to) and stitch, leaving a gap of about 4" for turning. I trimmed the corners, turned right side out and pressed. Finally I top stitched around the edge which closes the gap.

We were staying up in Scotland and managed to squeeze in a visit with them. My cousin was very appreciative but does anyone else get paranoid giving handmade gifts that the receiver has to say they like them even if they don't?