Refurbished Blanket

The day I woke up with the binding of my blanket wrapped around my neck, I decided it was time to do something.  The poor thing is really old -- as old as I am, I think, or close (which is not particularly old for ME, but for a blanket it's rather elderly) -- and it's had a lot of hard use in its lifetime.  I've already reattached the binding once, but it has frayed itself away to practically nothing.

Sad old binding.   This isn't even the worst part.

Fortunately, just last week I picked up a linen dress at the thrift store.  It was a lovely shade of purple but it appeared to have been shrunk at some point; the tag said "6 petite" but it probably wouldn't even fit a six-year-old.  However, the lining was just the right shade of purple (and the poor shrunken outside will probably be used as well), and at $2 it was cheaper than buying blanket binding.

The first step in sewing.  Plus the first joint of my thumb, looking a little bit lost.

I just cut strips roughly 4" wide (I didn't measure particularly), pieced them together, and pressed in one long edge.  The other edge I stitched to the blanket, then folded the whole thing over and stitched again along the pressed edge.

Shiny new binding, aka thrifted polyester lining fabric.

Voila!  My blanket has a new lease on life.  (Of course, the shiny new binding only shows up how sad and threadbare the rest of the cloth is.... but at least now it won't strangle me in the middle of the night.)

I didn't bother trying to match the thread.  (And I don't know what's up with the tension on my machine.
My stitching's been a little bit uneven lately.)