Do you ever get a certain item in your head that you decide you love, and you must have, and you can’t shake it, and it’s really for no reason at all? All the time? Oh good, me too.
One of such items is a military-style blanket. I just love them and I don’t know why. I don’t really even particularly have any use for one, and yet every time I see one being used on a show or on another blog, I find myself suddenly looking up sources to get one, or pricing them out. I just want it to look at. It doesn’t even have to be real. I’m just looking for a wool blanket with a stripe here, but those things can get pricey. Or have really inconvenient shipping terms.
I think this may be the source of my recent collection of random wool blankets from the thrift store. Again, I don’t really have any use for them other than picnic blankets or for keeping warm sitting around the fire pit, but I’ve gotten quite a stack and I just like to look at them. None are quite right though.
So here’s how I made my own military-style blanket for all my, um, blanket looking-at needs (?):
I had this multi-colored stripe blanket in my stash. It was nice and thick and I think was washed in too hot of a temperature of water (possbily by me) because it seems to have gotten a little bit felted, that’s just fine for this though! I cut along the green lines to eliminate the colored bits. Don’t worry! I know the lines are cute! I’m keeping those scraps and Kenna has requested pillows and ipod covers to be made out of them.
So that left me with a central blanket region that was a perfect size for a little throw blanket to go on the little sofa in my room.
I stuck some painter’s tape on there and just used a little bit of DecoArt “Light Buttermilk” paint for the stripe. It’s a warm whitey cream and it gives the whole thing a little bit more of a vintagey feel I think. I didn’t even use any of that new-fangled fabric medium stuff that you can get nowadays, either. The stripe is a little bit crusty, I admit, but not prohibitively crusty, so I’m mostly pretty thrilled with it.
I don’t really have a use for it yet, seeing as how we don’t actually have any bedrooms in this house that are, you know, pleasant to look at. When I find a place that I think needs one of these blankets though, I’ll be ready!
