DIY Gauze Swaddle Blanket Tutorial

Over a year ago I decided to make my own gauze swaddle baby blanket for Lamp.  I wanted something lightweight to wrap her up in and decided I could definitely make something as cute as any aden + anais swaddle blanket.  So I tried a star print using a sweet potato as a stamp.  The color was wrong and the stars were either too big or too small, in short it was ugly, ugly, ugly. So I never posted it.  However, I did end up using this blanket for Lamp anyway as it was still light and breezy like I needed. Well wouldn’t you know it, out of all the blankets in her vast blankie collection she has choose this one to be her lovie. There is one other plain brown gauze blankie she sometimes goes back and forth from, but right now ugly star blankie has her heart.

So even though I’ve been running around like a crazy woman with a crazy-long to do list, when inspiration struck I just had to stop and make her another blankie.  So without further ado, here is the Feather Swaddle Blanket tutorial.

2.  Then I decided I wanted to do a feather pattern.  So I googled “feather silhouette” just to get a basic idea of what I wanted.  You can see the one I decided to model my stamp after.   So you know… do that.

3.  Next cut a slice of your potato straight and smooth through.  You want the surface to be even so cut straight!  Trace your feather on there with a pen, I just freehanded it, then trace all around your feather with an exacto blade.  After than just start taking chunks out with your knife by scoring from the feather out, and then cutting under with a knife.  This is the trickiest part to explain, but I think you can figure it out.  Be sure to leave some little feather sticking out near the base of the stem… definitely the trickiest part to cut, but it’s hard to mess up.

4.  Next take your exacto and cut little triangle notches out of the side of the feather.  Refer back to the Google image if you need help with placement.

5.  Now is a good time to take a quick test run of your stamp on some paper.  Once you’re satisfied, coat your stamp with paint using a sponge applicator or paint brush.  I liked the idea of using black against this cream colored gauze.

6.  Now prepare your fabric to be stamped by spreading it out and putting paper underneath.

7.  Now stamp, applying even pressure and gently rocking back and forth to get a good image.  Make sure to reapply paint in between each stamping.

Note:  I didn’t plan for the feather to have the variations you see above with the paint being lighter on some prints, but I really like how it turned out.

 8.  Once your whole blankie is stamped go around the edges with either a serger or a zig-zag stitch on a regular sewing machine.