Recycled Polarfleece PJ Blankets

I've been holding onto Alex's polarfleece PJ's (He has quite a lot of them-- don't forget-- it's Wisconsin!) more or less since he was born. He spent so much time in them that first year that they hold many many memories for me. You can see him wearing them here, and here for example... Now that I've finally finished the baby quilt for Yonatan in Holland and given up on my summer project (a picnic blanket) and my fall project (a Halloween wall hanging) and my winter project (a Hanukkah garland) where only the picnic blanket was even remotely started, I thought it was time to make Alex a PJ blanket.

It was tough to destroy those PJ's. First of all, cutting into them at all made me feel guilty. Surely another child could get lots of use out of them. I've given away or sold almost all of Alex's clothes thus far. Second of all, cutting the PJ's makes you feel as though you are flaying a human being open. They are precisely the shape of a small child and I felt like Hannibal Lecter as I dismembered the pajamas leg by leg and arm by arm, carefully preserving as much fabric or "skin" as I could. After a while it got much easier and I just felt like a common butcher. Polarfleece is easy to sew with and the blanket was made in an afternoon.

Then Talia wanted one too, of course. I had given away most of her pj's to my niece Marley but I had all the 4T ones from last year and a few that we handed down to Alex (he wears lots of pink pajamas). Her blanket sewed up even quicker because I put the squares in a simple pattern and was able to chain piece. For the backing I used ultra-soft polarfleece (that stuff that's even softer than polarfleece?) light blue with white stars for Alex and pink minkee with raised hearts for Talia. She was beside herself at Joann's because she wanted something as soft as Alex's but they didn't really have any pretty ultra-soft and the minkee is so sweet. She just. couldn't. decide! I don't usually take her with me to pick out fabric because I can't concentrate with her there. Plus it was already almost 8pm but I really wanted to buy it before everything closed for xmas. I did not use any batting because these are hugging blankets (called softies in my house), not covering blankets and they needed to be very malleable. I didn't baste them or anything-- just put them right side together, sewed around the perimeter, turned them right side out and did some minimal in the ditch "quilting"-- vertical lines for Alex and concentric squares for Talia.

They were about as well received as anything could be. The kids love them and I get to enjoy those cute little PJ's forever. Reduced, reused, and recycled!