A Camping Blanket

This project came my way from a friend of my dad, Rick. He came up with an idea for the perfect camping blanket, and then had a co-worker sew one for him. He loved it so much, he asked me to make him another. I must say, when my dad described it to me, I thought it was a little strange. Then Rick dropped off the fabric and his old blanket, and it all made sense. The blanket has a semi-waterproof nylon on one side and fleece on the other. The two fabrics are quilted together and then bound on the edge with bias tape. In the end, it turns out to be rather like a light weight sleeping bag without the zipper.



Nylon side up...



and fleece side up.


The quilting was on the pretty easy side. I simply followed the boxes in the design on the fleece side. I used clear nylon thread for two reasons: first, to help it remain a little more water proof, as nylon thread will not wick water from one side to the other and second because the colors were so different on each side that I could not pick a single color that would look good on both sides. The nylon thread did pucker a bit, but I think it simply looks like a sleeping bag. Honestly, with a stretchy material and a non-stretchy material sewn together, I expected the puckering to be a lot worse.

I think I would like to try this again some time. I am betting it would be great for football games, and I wonder if it would also work for a picnic blanket when the grass is dewy and likely to soak through a normal blanket.