Picnic Blanket

I finally finished the picnic blanket that I started planning last fall, when I had checked out Handmade Home from the library. I found the sheets at Goodwill back in September, and had even contemplated making it for the twins' preschool fall auction (clearly that did not happen).

I started getting serious in May, but it took me nearly two months to do all the cutting and ironing and sewing. I finished off the binding last Tuesday night, with sweat literally pouring off of me as I sat at my sewing machine...but I wanted to have it done in time for my sister to visit, and take a nap on it in Fort Williams park after her red-eye flight (I did and she did). I'm sure she would have much more appreciated me cleaning the house in anticipation of her arrival, but it was way too hot and humid for that kind of action.

There are eighteen different things wrong with it...from me not being able to cut in a straight line or wield such large pieces of fabric to not looking at an actual picture of a bee before trying to embroider one. Oh, yes, and my perennial tension problems (no not my shoulders...my sewing machine).

But in the end it came out rather cute, and nice and big and highly functional. I ended up tying it with purple embroidery floss because I couldn't imagine trying to wrangle something so huge through my sewing machine (the backing is a full-sized sheet, in picnic-y yellow checks).

We put it to work on a foggy beach day Sunday. Let me assure you it absorbs more than triple its weight in water!