From this.... to that

 {Making a baby swaddler blanket from a Mens Polo shirt!}
Ok so I have seen a lot of things around the blogging world of ladies reusing or upcycling things and making them into different useful things. And I have tried to do this... here and there.... nothing major... until now.
We went to Walmart over Labor day to pick up a few things and they were having a sidewalk sale. All of their clearance items were outside and if you bought them outside you could take an extra 50% off the price.  It had been pretty picked over since it started on Saturday and we showed up on Monday but we were still able to find a few things. Nathan came home with a few polo shirts all of which were very nice... but as I was taking them off the hangers I noticed that one was significantly smaller then the rest. It was a small that had been put on an extra large hanger. And there is no way that Nathan can wear a small. ;) So I started to think about what I could do with this shirt. It took me a few days to finally decide and one day of playing around with it to see if it would really work. So without further ado....my version of the

MIRACLE BLANKET
you know... one of those little contraptions that bind up your baby so that they can barely move and look like little burritos,  and love it.  I had always just used a blanket but it never was very good a staying put and I would get reprimanded by my Mom for letting that baby flail. ;)  I do not have one of these blankets so this is just from seeing one once and and seeing a picture of one online. So this is what I made... using a 3$ Mens size small knit polo shirt from Walmart.
Here is what I started out with:



And I just started taking it apart at the seams. off came the sleeves and collar and then the front from the back and the hem.







I then realized that the back of the shirt was plenty of fabric to use for the "bag" part of the blanket... so that is where I started. I used a little bear for an approximate length guide and I just folded the bottom up to where I thought looked good. (I am very exact and measure everything as you can tell.)
*** I used the bear as a sample, this wrap is for a real baby! Baby Kash who is due in about 3 weeks!***





Pinned in place real good... I don't have any a lot of experience using knits so I may have went a little over board with the pinning.



And I got my trusty sharpie and drew out a "bag type shape"



I then moved on to the wrap part of the blanket. I guess on the original Miracle blanket there are little flaps on the inside for binding their arms down even more, I choose to not do this although it probably would not be to hard to add them later if I felt I needed it. So.. I took the front of the shirt and cut of the collar and then folded the fabric in half and cut two strips between 6-7inches wide. I made them as wide as I could and still able to be able to cut two.





I then took my shirt sleeves and I cut off the edge of it... I believe I cut it off right when it reached about 6 inches, pinned and sewed to one of my long strips.





So now I have one long strip and one one shorter strip. I then hemmed the edges... this is where a surger would have come in handy. But I made due.... I also rounded the edges of each strip. the longer strip even more so because you have to make the shirt edge and the strip edge even out.



Now to assemble everything...  I went ahead and cut around my sharpie outline and hemmed the bag part... once again if you have a surger your life will be significantly easier



and then pin your wraps to the bag part of the blanket, I pinned mine pretty well so that I wouldnt acidently sew over one of them. After I sewed it together I realized that I had pinned them wrong. The wraps should actually be sandwiched between the two pieces of the "bag section".... but o-well it still works. :)





You can see that my wraps are actually on the inside of the bag... again if you sandwich them between the bag front and back sections this wont happen. I am just to lazy to pick it all out and do it again.



here it is wrapped up:



Here are my scraps.... I think that I would have enough to make the little arm binder wraps but we will see how this one works.



And here is the bear all nice and swaddled. :)





Well I hope that if you wanted to try to make one of these that you have been able to understand what the heck I have been talking about. I have never done a tutorial before so hopefully it is at least semi legible. :) And I will see in about 3-4 weeks if it will work with Mr. Kash. :)

Linked to:

Blue Cricket Designs Show and Tell
Someday Crafts
The T-Shirt Diaries
The Shabby Chic Cottage
Somewhat Simple