A Travel Blanket For My Next Trip

This post is really out of order! What I should be talking about right now is this Travel Set:

Instead, I want to show off this cute project I just finished this morning.

It's something I've wanted for a long time. I don't know about you, but air conditioning and drafts drive me nuts, and airplanes and trains and buses are places where you can't avoid them and can't control them.

It's a Travel Blanket. This travel blanket. It's 48 inches wide by 60 inches long. (122 x 158 cm), and as you can see, it comes with its own carrier.

I found it in a tutorial on Nancy's Notions website. Not surprisingly, she sells the book/DVD, so I ordered it.

Travel Gear Made Easy is the title -- Mary Mulari is the author.

It just so happened that fleece was on sale at Fabricville, yes, even the animal print, which is a particular favourite of mine.

I happened to have 10 metres of beige corduroy that I had bought there during the $1 a metre sale.

I also had enough black zipper by the yard left for two zippers, and a length of black bias tape leftover from when I practised making one continuous strip of tape that I had learned from this video. And several yards of black webbing.

No excuses, right?

The flap has two pockets: one exterior one (notice the cool fully exposed zipper!)

And one secret interior one, accessible by flipping the flap.

You deploy the blanket by lifting the flap, which is attached by a strip of hook and loop tape. (AKA Velcro.)

Lastly, the handle is just the right size to slip over the handle of a suitcase.

See photo above for proper folding!

This is one of those projects that can be started and finished in one day, and I must say it's the most fun I've had sewing in a long time!