A Man's blanket

It's me again!  And no, I'm not done with the closet redo, I'm not that good.  But it is still at the top of the priority list this week (with a couple other things).  One of those other things being, a blanket for my husband.  I have recently decided to join in the contest at the Modern Quilt Guild, go here to check it out.  BUT, my husband has been asking for a blanket for a while, 5 years maybe, and it keeps not getting done.  So I finally bought him the fabric for Christmas and figured I best get his blanket done first.  If I start on another one before it's done, he might leave me!  Ok, not really, but I'm sure some of you understand.

So, here is a quick mini tutorial on how I made his blanket.

He had a couple requests.  He wants more a comforter, so it will be finished with high loft batting and just tacked together as opposed to quilted.  Second, he wanted a Punisher skull on it.  Don't know who that is?  It's a comic book character. He has a movie out now as well.

So, I started by enlarging a Punisher skull to my desired size, printed it out on about 16 different pieces of paper, taped it to the window and then traced over it with freezer paper.  I did this about 2 years ago (see I have been thinking about him, not completely neglecting it), so I have no pictures, but I'm sure you can figure it out.

Then, I sewed the background fabric together.  The ladies at Joann's were wondering what the heck I needed 10 yards of black fabric for (5 for the front, 5 for the back).  I laid this out on the floor and positioned the freezer paper where I wanted it, then simply ironed it down.

Now the tricky part, I used a reverse applique method, so I needed the white fabric for the skull directly under the freezer paper stencil.  I folded over the black fabric so it was roughly in half, then laid the white fabric, also folded in half, down the fold, feeling so it was covering the freezer paper.

 I then laid this back on the ground and safety pinned the outer edge of the white fabric, smoothing as I went so I knew it was all laying flat.

  I then folded that edge back over (so only half is pinned at this point) and added a few more stabilizing safety pins inside the template.  I then simply folded over the other half and repeated.

I don't have any pics for this part, but then I put on my embroidery foot and went around all the lines with the pressure foot down, turning it with the freezer paper was not an option, it made the quilt really bulky and was kind of a pain to move around.  After that was done, I removed the freezer paper, then very carefully making sure to only cut the black fabric, trim inside your lines leaving about 1/4 inch fabric before your seam.  Now this will fray, so after the freezer paper was off, I simply went around the entire outline again with a small zigzag stitch, just to make sure it doesn't fray too far.  Then, simply trim the white fabric down so you only have a small amount around the seam and Wallah!  Done and ready to finish however you desire.

A couple close ups.