The Teddy Bear's Picnic

My niece loves to have tea parties with her "baby" Max and her other toys.  She is a very girly girl and has firm opinions about the colour pink and who should (and more importantly should not!) wear it.

For Christmas I decided to make her a picnic blanket so that she and her friends could really dine in style!

I bought a remanant of pink fleece that gave me a square one metre in size and splurged on some Tinkerbell blanket binding and webbing that was such a cute mauve colour that I couldn't resist.

I read a load of tutorials on putting blanket binding on but I have to say that I found it surprisingly difficult.  No matter how I pinned or tacked it it seemed to ruckle up as I sewed. After I had finished swearing, huffing and puffing I unpicked it and tried again.  After about three repeats of this with the air turning progressively more blue with each one I finally got the best results I could (but definitely not perfect) by using basting glue.

I really wanted the blanket to fold up into a sweet carry case so I cut another piece of fleece from my remenant and edged it with oridnary double fold bias binding, which was a LOT easier than the blanket binding.

I attached the webbing in two carry handles and some at the sides to fasten with Velcro.  I ironed on some transfer letters to spell her name and stitched that to the front.  Then I stitched the rectangle to the blanket. Voila, the Teddy bears were ready for their picnic...



And we're ready for the off...



Stage One of the unfolding process.

Stage Two.

Stage Two from the underside.

Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic!



I hasten to add that all props used in these photos are mine, not hers (Yes I know it's sad that I have Teddy Bears but at least it's my best china!).

She loved the blanket and I am told that she has been going on many "days out" in her play Camper Van with toys and a picnic!  That makes me very happy!