Crochet Fleece Blankets

Crocheting is still very new to me.  I only learned about 5 months ago or so.  But I wanted to make blankets for Project Linus.  Its a non-profit that distributes blankets to kids, here’s a link if you want to lean more…..http://projectlinus.org/index.html

But as you know if you crochet, it takes a long time to do a blanket.  I made one for my daughter and am working on one for my hubby but I wanted to find something that has a faster turn around.  So I thought i would try to crochet on fleece.  So my options are to do a blanket stitch around the blanket or crochet on the blanket.  I like the look of the yarn going around the blanket instead of embroidery floss, so it then became how do I make the holes in the fleece.  Everyone told me about a rotary cutter with a blade called the skip stitch.  Ya, well, cant find it!  The company that had been making them has since stopped, not sure what happened.  There are a few others that I saw on the web but they had mixed reviews.  I went to the local fabric store talked with the lady there, she was ordering a new one and it was supposed to be in next week.  Next week came and went and still no rotary cutter.  I was tired of waiting so I decided to try something else.  The first thing I tried was cutting the fabric with super sharp scissors.  That is the blue blanket in the pictures.  You can see that some of the holes came out a little big.  didnt really like it.  Plus my hand was super tired.  I tried a few other things to poke the hole, nothing really worked good.  Then I thought I would try a seam ripper.  Totally worked!  I was so happy!  So thats how I did the green blanket and you can see that it worked really well, you dont see the holes.  So that is the way I will be making them!

Im sure there are several different ways to do these but this is the way I did mine.

I bought a yard of fleece trimmed it up.  I cleaned up the edges they werent cut very clean, then cut about 8 inches or so off.  Then I used a disappearing ink marker and a yard stick and marked every half inch.

After I marked all the way around, I made the hole.  This picture is the blue blanket so you can see where I used the scissors.  I then did a single crochet in the hole then one chain and single crochet in the next hole.  All the way around.

Next row is single crochet.

then half double crochet. Then single crochet to finish it.   With the green I did the same but I also added a little ruffle on so it looked girly.  For that I did half double crochet, double crochet, half double crochet, then chain 4 skip 3.  Does that make sense????  haha  Ok, well if you REALLY want to know let me know and I will do a step by step.  These 2 are all ready to be donated now I need to go get more fabric and yarn and start another.  I think I may try to do a receiving blanket.  From what I have seen online doesnt look like you have to really make a hole if you use a small enough hook you can work it in between the threads……anyone try it before?