Weighted Sensory Blanket : :

 My friends boy has some sort of sensory deficit disorder. To help him sleep at night the OT (Occupational therapist) lent her a small (about 1mt by 1mt) weighted blanket to sleep under. She found the extra weight really helped him get a better sleep.

However to buy one, they sell them for $400!! I told her I could make one for less. She wanted a bigger one, so we decided to make it the size of a king single mattress (or there abouts).

I found some really cool Marvel fabric at fabric.com. It also has a patch style print, which really helped me sew it into patches.

Le me just say that after sewing this beast I now know why they charge $400! I sewed up columns on the fabric, joining the back and the front. Then using weighted beads put a 1/3 cup in each column then sewed a horizontal line to sew them into their individual patches. (does that even make sense? I don't know how to explain it any easier).

 

Theoretically it sounded easy...boy was I wrong!! With 5kgs of beads in this blanket, it was soooo heavy. It kept slipping of my sewing table, and the weight of it would pull the whole thing off.
Also trying to move the beads out of the way so I didn't sew over them, and trying to keep them all in the right spot quickly turned this 'easy' blanket into something of a nightmare. 

The back is Kona cotton in Ocean. It came in a wide 66inch piece, which was handy as I didn't have to join any pieces together like I did for the front (not that you can really tell because I was extra careful in matching up the pattern and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself!)

Well its done now thankful I don't have any other friends with children that need one of these because I really don't fancy making another for a loooong time (if ever!)

Hears to a good night sleep! Nothing worse than tired kids!

Jessica