Picnic Blankets & Nautical Grommets!

My first sewing machine, I was beyond excited!  It reminded me of when I recieved the doll BabyTalk when I was 5 years old on Christmas morning!  I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing, but a 40 minute date with the manual and I was on my way!

I REALLY wanted picnic blankets for the wedding. I had shopped around a bit and sheets were not only expensive, but too thin and didn't come in a variety of patterns.  Comfortors were even more costly and they just weren't the look that I was desiring.

I thought, why not practice/learn how to sew and make some picnic blankets!

I went to a discount fabric store to pick out the fabric.  I wanted blankets about 5ft in either width or length so I just eye-balled it and purchased a roll for $15.00.

Next..I knew since we were going to be on the water that there may be wind gusts so I wanted to have something to secure the blankets... and what better to complete the nautical look than grommtts!  Another first time to using grommets it truly was a breeze.
Grommets and tool about $20.00 for all 6 blankets.

                             Great grommet "how to"

  

Lastly the pins to put into the ground to secure the blanket.  I went to the lawn section of Home Depot and found these metal garden pins.  There was a variety of types, I just choose the one that was most discrete.  These were about $3.00 for a bag of them.

Once I had all of the materials I used my new sewing machine and folded an inch back and sewed down all the seams so it would look nice and clean.  The blankets got better and better each time!

For the wedding we scattered the blankets around the outside of the tent.  I got wooden bins to put upside down with a lantern on top as a little table.

Now, I can use the blankets at the beach or on a picnic which leads me to my next project... Adding grommets to a large beach towels, or maybe even a grommet table that doubles as a bag! Stay tuned!