baby blanket #2

So last week I stayed awake one night picturing the ideal baby blanket in my head. The problem I envisioned with a lightweight summer blanket was the traditional quilt binding that I had on some of my baby blankets, it seemed to weigh them down with a heavy treatment. In my mind I took the bias tape and just inserted it in between the front and back.
The next morning I went shopping trying to make it happen. (You would think I had something that would work in my stash but I knew I did not have a bright stripe that would coordinate with 2 other fabrics that would be suitable for a boy!) Three fabric stores and 2 days later I had found them.

 Hancocks

JoAnne's

JoAnne's
The bright turquoise stripe I found was perfect except it was not 100% cotton. I decided to use it anyway since it is just on the edge and wouldn't be touching the baby much. (My babies all broke out if the did not have cotton touching their face...but THEN babies slept on their stomach and their faces touched their bedding. Today, not so much.)

Here is the front,the back and the edge.
The tricky part is making the front and back the EXACT same size. I tried. The yellow ended up a smidgeon bigger and I thought that the owls were bigger.

• The bias is cut at 3/4" (I purchased a yard since I was brain dead by the time I found something that would work and I didn't want very many seams. Seams = work. Lots left over.)
• The front and back were 1 1/4 yards each, none left over. I noticed that the cutters at JoAnne's were very careful to give me exactly what I asked for and those at Hancock's were not. So I have a small scrap of the yellow for my scrap bin.

To keep the 2 layers from shifting I wanted to quilt something in the center. In the past I did a heart, here I did an owl. Jeffrey enlarged a section of the fabric and I traced it onto soluble paper and quilted it.

 Here it is finished with the paper torn out and then washed out.

 I thought it looked fabulous without the edge top stitching...but when it came out of the dryer it was obvious it needed topstitching to be shake and go....and what new mother is going to press the edge of a receiving blanket before it gets used?