Another blanket...

I recently finished another weighted blanket.  I wanted one for my bed, since carrying them up and down the stairs is difficult for me.  I bought the fabric one month and the weighted pellets another month.  Then, I started sewing, still not being a seamstress and basically only able to sew in a straight line.  This was the largest one I've ever attempted.  Next, I ran out of pellets and had to wait until another budget cycle to buy them.  Finally, I finished it.

The problem with the fabric is that I let myself be hurried in its purchase, my neighbor anxious to leave since she didn't care about fabric and the woman working at the fabric counter rushing me so she could take her break.  I wish I wasn't such a pushover.  SIGH.  Anyway, I ended up with too much fabric.

Way too much.

When I went to cut it off, I decided that I would cut the fabric in half.  [Have I mentioned that I really, really, really bought too much fabric?]  I thought that would be sufficient, because the blanket would be from my chest to my toes.  I thought it would be a waste of the fabric purchase if I had a smaller piece left.  Though, now that I have worked it with, I could have cut it with a quarter left and had what I needed, had the covered I needed.  Though, I am jumping ahead.

This is the fabric I chose, because I wanted to something that would go with my bedding.  [You know, being an interior designer's daughter and all!]  It is Waverly, as is all the fabric I've purchased for weighted blankets, a light weight upholstery fabric.

The reason that I had to buy more pellets, the reason that I had to wait even longer for the blanket, was that if you buy heavier pellets and you still use the same quantity per pocket, you will run out of pellets.  They sell by weight.  I should have thought about that when I bought a larger quantity and yet it came in the same sized box.  But I don't realize such things anymore.  I get confused ... especially by anything that involves math!

Sewing the blanket was terribly difficult, which I now realize because it was so much heavier!  I struggled to move the fabric along as I was sewing the seams for the pockets.  I haven't actually weighed the blanket, but I know that it is twice as heavy as the one Becky made for me and I have been sleeping with of late.  Speaking of weight, I practically need a crane to move the new blanket!!

Here is my finished blanket.  I know there is a formula for weighted blankets ... wait, I will go look.  Okay, so my body weight means my blanket should be between 12 and 25 pounds.  Now, I will trudge upstairs and weigh the blanket.  Oh!  It is only 19.6 pounds!  If I had made it as long as I wanted, where I could have my shoulders and feet covered at the same time, I bet I would have hit that weight!  Maybe.

As it is, I ripped off a nail two nights ago pulling the blanket up over my shoulders.  OUCH.  Seriously, I could use a crane.  But the up side is that I have been sleeping more and better since I started using this crushing weight atop me.  Yay!  Yay!  Yay!

I do not move around as much, which might help.  I don't know about that.  But what I do feel the most is not so much the weight but a sense of safety.  SAFETY!!  I am not that good at describing it other than to say that after the first night I IMMEDIATELY wanted to figure out how to make myself a bed size weight blanket so that no matter how I rolled around in the bed, I'd be smushed.  After all, I could just cut apart this blanket, spill out the weighted pellets, and start again.

[Okay, so I am not a graphic designer, so please ignore my childish attempt to make an example.]

My idea was to make the blanket in nine parts.  The outside edges I would make like I do the ones now, but the inside edges I would simply close with a seam and leave the some fabric hanging out so that I can use it to sew all the parts together.  Then, to cover that, I would just sew on a cover.  That part wouldn't have to be weighted.  And I think the two seams of the cover and the seam of joining the pieces would mean that the joints would be strong enough to bear being tugged on by the weight of the pieces moving around.

It is something that I am thinking about, although I think that the larger you try to make a weighted blanket, the more you need a second person to help move the fabric through the machine once you've make a fair amount of the pockets.

The blanket above is 140 pockets.  I think that is nearly as much as I could make by myself.  The side pieces would not be hard to make, but I am not sure piecing them together is something I could do without help.  Like I said, all I know how to do is sew straight lines, simple stitches.  And I can sometimes wind a bobbin and sometimes thread a needle.  SIGH.

In the meantime, I decided to use half of the remaining fabric to make a medium weighted blanket for my new therapist's office.  I had been lugging the one Becky made me back and forth, which was quite hard.  I brought up the idea of leaving one there and she was amenable, so I thought I would make one.  This is a bit larger than the one I made for the back of the sofa and the one I had originally made for my bed.  Sitting on her sofa, I can either have a generous covering of my lap and torso or I can turn it and have it cover me from my shoulders to below my knees.  That's how I used it the first time I brought it ... last week.

My therapist thought I meant to just park it there, but I told her that she was welcome to offer it to her other clients whilst they were with her.  Or, maybe, she could use it whilst listening to our wounds and confusion.  Clearly I believe in their value.  And I find them helpful.  Maybe others there will, too.

The thing is, I didn't realize just how much I needed them, especially a heavier one.  I know that weighted blankets suppresses your autonomic nervous system so that it helps to calm you and help with anxiety. I wonder if the heavier weight is more helpful with me because of the malfunction of my autonomic nervous system.  I honestly think that I could sleep even better were I to get a blanket large enough for all of me and allow for movement.

I want that.