Basketball Blankie

So I always see football and baseball inspired crafts on pinterest and craft blogs but very few basketball things, and being a basketball girl myself I decided to come up with a pattern to make a basketball blanket.
Its very simple...it took me about two hours to complete but that time estimate includes refilling sippy cups, changing diapers, and wiping noses...:) So I'm sure it can be done in about an hour.

You will need: 1 yd of  Orange Fabric.  You can use anything.  I actually prefer the dotted minky because I think the dots make the blanket look like the texture of an actual ball but Joann's had this soft and plush on sale so I went with it.
                         1 yd of cordinating fabric.  I found a cute flannel basketball fabric, but you can use anything for this side also.
                         1/8 yd of black fleece.
                         Rotary cutter, scissors, cooridinating thread, 6 sheets of paper, sharpie, a piece of yarn and tape.

First to make a circle pattern tape pieces of paper together in two rows of three. 

Next you want to cut your string or yarn.  You want to cut the yarn half of the size you want the blanket to be.  I wanted mine to be around 38" so I used a string that was 19" long.  I then tied it to a sharpie.

Now take the end of the string that isn't tied to sharpie and place it at the bottom left corner of the papers you taped together and stretch the sharpie end straight above the bottom piece.

Then holding the bottom part in place take the sharpie and go downward making an arch.

And it should look like this.

No just cut it out and you have your pattern. :)

Now you can cut our your fabric.  Take your fabric and lay it out then fold it in half long ways.

Then fold in half the other way so that you have two folded sides.

Line up the folds with your pattern.

Now take your rotary cutter and cut fabric.  Then repeat with the other fabric.

Next you will need to cut black strips of fleece to make the lines on the basketball.  Again depending on how big you make your blanket will determine how long you will need to cut the fleece.  You want them to be about 1.5" wide and a few inches longer than the blanket.  I laid mine out and played with the placement first.

Once you get it just right pin in place and sew the strips on. 

And don't be jealous of my dinosaur of a sewing machine...ha! She was my grandmother's machine and has been great to learn on. :) After watching the Superbowl halftime show this year I named her Madonna because she is 50 plus years and still rocks! :)

Here she is in all her glory :)

Now back to the blanket.  Once you have sewn on all the strips, lay it out pretty side facing up.  Then lay second fabric on top pretty side facing down.  So right sides should be facing each other.

 Pin in place and sew together using a 1/4" seam.  When you are sewing the two pieces together stop several inches from completely sewing all the way around so you will have a place to turn the blanket right side out.  After you turn it right side out sew that hole together.

And ta-da...