Want to Try It?

I highly encourage you to try to make one of these blankets yourself; they're a simple way to let a new family know that you care and are thinking about them during a crucial milestone.

Like I said before, these blankets are made of soft cotton flannel. I got my fabric at Joann's, and they called it snuggle flannel, which had a bunch of cute baby prints :). You'll need two pieces, each about a square, so if you have 42"wide fabric, I would buy around 43 or 44 inches of fabric to be safe. 

I found this blog with the pattern that I used on Pinterest, which was my best friend over this process. It was perfect for my project since the pattern was simple and allowed for a lot of variation in fabric.

This is the blog that I used. I didn't square off the fabric for my project because it wouldn't have been an efficient use of my time since we had to turn out 100, so it's not absolutely necessary but always a nice detail to make sure it's perfect. The blog has a link to a video tutorial on squaring off fabric if you aren't familiar with it. 

One other slight change that I made was with the hole in the stitching for turning the blanket right side out. I preferred to put the hole in the middle of the blanket. I felt like that allowed me to pull the blanket right side out easier, but it isn't a big deal as to where you leave a hole.

Hopefully all of your questions are answered with the blog! I also wanted to mention that your baby blanket doesn't have to be similar to the one on the blog-- you can crochet, knit, or quilt the blanket that you want. I would only suggest to stay away from embellishments like buttons or ribbons as they might irritate baby's face or skin. 

Have fun!

My Experience

Overall, I had a wonderful time with my event. We ended up with everything I had hoped-- 100 finished blankets, 3 hours of hard work, 30 tired volunteers, and zero injuries :).

Here's how my event went:

The night before my event was Prom (believe me, that was tough) so I didn't get to arrive at my venue with very much time to prepare. That would definitely be the first thing I would fix if I could re-do my project- get to the venue super early. But although I was a bit rushed to set things up before volunteers started arriving, we managed to be ready for action in a reasonable amount of time.

 The turnout of volunteers for the day was awesome! The weather was absolutely awful- a snowstorm rolled in about half an hour in, but my faithful volunteers still made the trek to help me sew baby blankets, and I will forever be indebted to them!

The local recreation center donated a large room for me to hold my event, and in that room, we set up 4 stations: cutting, pinning and sewing fabric and, of course, a snack station! Volunteers worked in any and all stations that they wanted. Just about everybody had a chance to sew their very own blanket, even the volunteers who hadn't sewn before. The fact that everyone at least tried to sew, even with no experience, is one of my biggest successes with this project. I was so happy that all of my volunteers could participate and even learn something along the way!

I really felt like the event went well! Everyone had something to do but we never felt rushed, the blankets came out great, and I think we all had a little fun, too.

Getting Help

There is no way I could have done this project alone-- I would have logged an eternity into getting my blankets done!

I recruited volunteers basically the same way that I did for fundraising. I appealed to my church, family, and friends to help me any way they could, and for a bunch of them it was volunteering at my event. We had multiple stations for the blankets to go through, like cutting, pinning, and sewing, and just about everybody participated in the majority of them. This kept people engaged and also allowed them to learn; I personally taught five middle schoolers to sew during my event.

I think the most important part of gaining volunteers is coming up with a variety of jobs the need to be done to achieve your goal. That way, you can reach a wider audience: not just people who can sew, but those who don't know the first thing about sewing and want to help.

Be sure also to always talk about your project, there are lots of people that I recruited from references who had heard about my project. I got the word out to many people who I knew: family, friends, parents' friends, and that way I reached a wider audience of possible volunteers.

The more people you recruit, the smoother your project will run!

Getting Supplies

One of the most time-consuming and stressful parts of my project so far has been buying supplies. For my project, I decided to use soft cotton flannel, which is relatively expensive (about $7.00 per yard). I had a bit of trouble trying to find fabric that had both good quality and was relatively cheap, since I would be buying it in bulk.

I had heard before from lots of people to use smaller, locally owned shops and stores, but I was never able to find enough material to use. Because I didn't want to clean out smaller stores only to have to visit multiple others, I decided to try to buy my fabric at a bigger, corporate store: Joann's.

I tried multiple times to contact a store manager or even to pitch my case at a corporate level, but I always got automated messages back (which was expected but still frustrating). So rather than try to get personal discounts for my project, I decided to take advantage of coupons and sales.

Lucky for me, March is Craft Month, so I came across multiple sales for soft cotton flannel, and good ones, too! For the most part, I was able to save about 50% on all of my fabric and even a few miscellaneous supplies.

I went shopping three times, and on each occasion, I spent between $200 and $300 and bought enough fabric for about 30 blankets. It ended up taking me about 45 minutes just to get my fabric picked out and matched, and another 45 to get it cut.

Looking back, I wish I would have used a few smaller stores to try to get large personal discounts, but buying from a larger store allowed me to have a much larger selection of fabric and score such large savings.

Where'd the Money Come From?

So how did I raise funds to pay for these baby blankets? One thing's for sure- it was much easier than I expected.

I was truly amazed at the generosity of the community and how much people wanted to be involved in my project; it was so inspiring to have my entire community behind me, supporting both my project and myself in earning this award.

My first move to raise funds was through my church. We have announcements before mass every Sunday, so I went to my priest and deacon to ask for a day to present to the congregation about my project. On my day, I went up in front of everyone shortly before mass and made a short speech about my project. I presented to two different mass times that day, and I raised about $350 from those two speeches. It was so amazing to see all of the support in donations of both money and time from all of the parishioners!

I also employed the help of my mom's coworkers. She is an accountant at an engineering firm and we posted some flyers around the office to raise awareness of my project. From this, at least so far, I have raised about $200 and a few volunteers to help me sew the actual blankets.

If I could give any advice for raising money for any non-profit project, it would be to tell everyone you know or meet about your project- you don't know what kind of generosity will come your way!

Welcome!

First and foremost, thank you for visiting my blog for my Girl Scout Gold Award!!

My name is Maddie Haneke, and I am a Senior Girl Scout who is currently working on her Gold Award.

With my first sample blanket

This blog accounts for the "global connection" aspect of my project, and it aims to educate others on what my project is all about and how I went about earning it.




Thanks again for coming!!