Carbon Creations: Picnic Blanket

It's SUMMER TIME!!! I love to be outside in the summer and some of my favorite activities are outdoor concerts and plays. My sister lives in the Windy City, which is full of outdoorsy things and parks. And with her birthday approaching (and now passed... I get so busy), I decided to build her a picnic. Kinda...

This portable picnic paradise platform was inspired and directed by Fabric-by-Fabric One Yard Wonders.

Materials:

One yard of home deco fabric (It was the end of a bolt, so I got a little extra. But I figured, it's a big rectangle so it shouldn't matter)
Sewing machine and materials
Rolator cutter and mat
3 buttons that match

Instructions:

1. Cut your fabric. (My measurements are based on one yard of fabric, but if you end up with more fabric, like I did, you can make necessary adjustments.

Flap: 36" x 6
Pocket 36" x 7
Blanket: whatever is left :)

2. Hem three sides of the blanket. Don't hem one of the 36" ends.

3. Do the same with the pocket. (Hem three sides, except for one of the 36" sides).

4. Align the non-hemmed edges and pin the right side of the pocket to the wrong side of the blanket. Stitch along the raw edge.

It will look like this on the other side once it's sewn together and opened up.

5. Flip the pocket up onto the right side of the blanket so that the wrong side of the pocket is on the right side of the blanket. Pin it.

6. Sew it.

7. Mark the pockets to make divisions that work for your plates and utensils. I just made it simple and did four equal divisions and then divided the two middle divisions in two again (wait... what? so i ended up with two big pockets on the ends and four small pockets in the middle. Sew along your drawn divisions

POCKETS!

TO PUT THINGS IN!!

8. Now the flap. Hem the short ends and one of the long ends. For the unfinished 36" side, fold and press over 1/4" (Don't sew it yet!)

9. Buttonhole time!! This was scary for me because I have never done it before. But I survived it! My sewing machine has this crazy cool automatic buttonhole maker. You put on the buttonhole foot and then put your button in the back of it and then hit the pedal and MAGIC!!

Sew buttonholes evenly spaced on the flap, one in the middle and two on the edges. Make them 1" above the "bottom of the flap" (the longer hemmed edge). Allow Sully to demonstrate.