Patch It Up: A DIY Shibori Patchwork Picnic Blanket / Beach Towel

I’m on a plane to Miami right now…next stop Grenada! And no doubt I’ll be sharing lots of our sunny adventures (I’m headed down there with Jeff, along with our good friends Ashley and Jared of Sugar & Cloth). So, I couldn’t help but kick off the trip with a colorful beach towel meets picnic blanket DIY that is one part shibori and one part patchwork.

Reusing the leftover DIY shibori hankies I made a while back, we sewed together a little patchwork blanket / beach towel to soak in every last summer DIY I can before fall gets here. But you can use any scarves, hankies, or textile scraps you might have to complete your own.

Click through for the step by step tutorial for making your own patchwork that can be used for picnics, beach excursions, even decorative wall art.

What you need to make your own…

• scarves, hankies, or textile scraps (I used these DIY shibori hankies)
• sewing machine and thread

How to make it…

1. Iron each of your squares. If some of your pieces are different shapes fold over the edges and iron to make sure each of your tiles are roughly the same size.

2. We used 9 (3 rows of 3) fabric squares to create our blanket but you can use as many as you would like. Once you know how many tiles are in each row start with that number to create your first row and pin your tiles together.

3. Sew each pinned section. Your welcome to double stitch this if you feel like it needs to be sturdier, but that wasn’t necessary for us.

4. Now that you have your first row completed add your next 3 tiles and pin those to the original row as well as each other. This way you will make sure each row you add is the the same length as the original row and wont have to go back and hem the edges.

5. Repeat this process until you’ve used all your tiles, finish off by ironing, and you’re all done!

Photography by Amelia Tatnall
Sewing by Rachel Brewer
Modeling by Michelle Douglas

Are you working on any end of summer projects that you’ve been meaning to finish up? Curious to hear what you’ve been working on.