A couple of weeks ago I receive a box from Hancock Fabrics which, in addition to my 5 yds of Peltex#70 (to be used on another project), contained various 1 yd cuts of cute "Barbie" or Barbie looking fabric. Upon receiving the box, I noticed that one particular cut of fabric was exceptionally soft, and it fueled my creative interest for my latest design. To add to the creativity that was already begining to form, my daughter walked into the room and gasped saying, "Mom! It's Barbie! Oh, I love it so much!" I immediately went into my craft room (which is a disaster right now :( ), and began pulling out all of the various left over cuts of soft fabrics that I've been storing over the past year. What I came away with was a wide assortment of minky's, flannels, and satins, all in a Barbie approved color scheme.

With the fabric and "The Quilted Fish's" "Bloomin' Trellis" pattern in hand, I went to work cutting all of my wonderful fabric down to 5" squares. After cutting roughly 50 some odd squares, I proceeded to sew them together, randomly, in a diagonal fashion until I had 4 columns and 6 rows.

   

Now, I had originally planned to continue to follow the "Bloomin' Trellis" pattern, and add gathered ruffles along the sewn 'ditches', creating a lattice look, however I'm not so sure I'm going to go that route anymore. I feel as though the gathers would be too much, however, if I don't do the gathers, my uneven/ not-lined-up edges and corners will show. Hmmm... I might have to think on that one a little longer. Anywho, it's still in the works, so no need to decide on that just yet!

After sewing all of my 5" squares together, I decided to add a 12" border of white minky dot around the edges. This would allow for me to get creative with various applique's, as well as allow for a 1 1/2" satin border.

Then I began to think, "What am I going to applique onto the blanket?" Originally I had planned to use the design included in the "Bloomin' Trellis" pattern, but since this is a "Barbie" blanket, I decided to do some online searching for Barbie related designs.

My goal for this blanket was for it to look cute and girly, yet sophisticated and shabby chic. I immediately envisioned a Barbire cameo silhouette in each corner, complete with a ruffled/scalloped frame around each. I looked online and found a darling "vintage" Barbie silhouette, and cropped it to an approximate 3.5x5" size. For the cameo frame, I crocheted a scalloped edging using thin cotton yarn and a 3.5mm hook. To finish the look off, I gave Barbie a pink satin bow for her hair, and a pearl necklace. The result...

Then all I needed was a top and bottom applique design to finish everything off. For the top, I went with a girly heart swirl flourish, cut out of a light pink rose embossed minky; and for the bottom I chose the classic Barbie logo, cut out of hot pink satin.

Here's a wide shot of the whole top piece, and my daughter, who is absolutely in LOVE with her un-finished blankie...

SO, it's not completely finished, but almost. As soon as Joann's put's their minky on sale from $15/yd to under $9/yd, I'll be down there buying the backing, batting, and light pink satin binding to finish this blanket off. As of now, I'm thinking of quilting it using the stitch in the ditch method for the center, and then carrying that through the edges of the blanket, creating a 4 1/2" diamond grid over the whole thing. I think I might do this using a pink thread, so that the quilted diamond grid stands out against the white. I don't know... just an idea, it might change tomorrow!