Heirloom receiving blanket

A couple of weeks ago

I took another class on heirloom sewing.

I just love sewing with the best quality cotton and lace!

and here is the result:

a beautiful receiving blanket!

Soon a little lamb will be in that corner,

I just need more time!

During the class, we used pre-washed cashmere cotton fabric ( 30"x45"),

 it is cotton, but extrememly soft, just like cashmere!

and 4.5 yard of French lace (also cotton), 1 inch wide.

Heirloom sewing is usually done with a special thread,

a very fine thread like Madeira 80 wt (usually white or ecru)

Here is a close-up of how the lace is attached to the fabric.

It is a 2 step process.

First the lace and fabric are joined together with a straight stitch

(right side together).

 Then after ironing, we used a Parisian hemstitch

with  a wing needle (a very wide needle)

to finish the edge and to make those holes.

I do not have that stitch on my machine,

I used a stitch semilar,

 it looks like a ladder with one side missing,

with a lot of back and forth (help to make the holes)

Then we trimmed the excess fabric in the back.

Here is the picture of the back:

And how about these mitered corners?

We took care of them last. 

When we were sewing the lace to fabric,

 we left a little extra lace at the corners.

So we just folded the fabric and straight stitched the lace

 and cut the excess lace, voila!

And here it the final corner on the right side:

We did this blanket in about 2h.

For the emboidery, you would need to add a few more hours!

If you have never done work like this before

 I would suggest finding a local heirloom store,

here the web site of my local store:

http://www.marthasheirlooms.com/

On April 9 and 10, we will go to a heirloom sewing retreat!!

I will miss the first day since there is nobody to watch

the kids, but I will be able to take a all day class

on a heirloom baby dress,

it will be pink with white lace,

it should be very interesting!

I will keep you posted!!

I did finish my lapin pillow:

 and I sent it to a friend of mine.

Farewell little blue bunny!

Happy sewing!