Airplane Tag Blanket

So last week we had a friend's baby shower and I got a boost of creativity around 10pm the night before the shower. I already had the rest of the gift wrapped, but I absolutely LOVE cute home made baby stuff and a brilliant idea popped into my head. Our Marine hubbies both fly C-130's and my poor boys already have their rooms decked out with airplane stuff...but this was fresh blood! I could make them some sort of cargo airplane looking craft. Something useful, but not as quick lived as burp cloths....a taggie blanket! I surfed Pinterest for ideas and decided it was easy enough. Then I surfed Google for KC-130 airplanes (so I could be anatomically correct...very important to my husband.) Yes yes yes! Simple lines, a few windows, I can totally pull this off in a few hours!

So...down to the craft room I went, scavenging for coordinating fabric and ribbons. Yes! Finally, my ridiculously large assortment of impulse Michael's and JoAnne's purchases was going to save me a trip to the store (Walmart, specifically because it is the only craft store open past ten and avoiding that store at that time of evening made it worth EVERY penny.)

I love the pink and brown and blue and brown combo, so when I saw several coordinating fabrics and ribbons at the craft store a year or two ago, I bought the whole shebang. I also had some minky fabric and some super soft polished felt. Since I recently made my daughter's tooth fairy pillow, I also had some of that pillow stuffing material- yes!  Now I just had to make a template. All the DIY taggies I found on Pinterest recommended a 1/4 inch allowance for seams...so I broke in to my daughter's Hello Kitty jumbo size coloring book (9x14) and used a sheet to draw my template. I freehanded in pencil and got the ok from my husband ("This looks like a C-130, right honey??!") Then I added 1/4 inch dotted line and cut it out. I doubled the fabric (one layer of white minky, one layer of the brown and blue print, since she is having a boy) and put it right to right facing.

I cut it with my handy fabric rotary tool. Then I cut out 5 different coordinating ribbons- some satin, some grosgrain, one felt...each 5 inches. Then I took the felt and cut out little windows and the nose of the plane. I used the "no sew" fabric stuff and just ironed this on, I didn't want there to be stitch marks.

My husband had pointed out that my airplane didn't have any engines, so I used some blue stitched ribbon and sewed it on to the wings like a double bow...they are SUPPOSED to be engines. Use your imagination!

Then I stuffed it and sewed. It came out pretty darn cute. Not quite as cute as I pictured, but good enough to give as a gift. It will only take me five more to perfect it.