Easy DIY Blanket Scarf

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m sitting at my desk in the office, I’m SO COLD. I don’t always like to keep my coat on because it’s pretty stiff, so I decided that I would get myself a blanket scarf to keep warm.

I looked at a couple that I liked, but found that there was no way that I was going to pay $50+ for a blanket scarf. I mean, I know it’s a big scarf, but that’s generally more than I like to spend on pants.

My friend Tash has the gorgeous double sided plaid one from Zara, so using that as my inspiration, I decided to make a blanket scarf for myself. I knew that I wanted two different plaids - one a black pattern and the other more red/crimson.

I started by sourcing fabric from the fashion district in Toronto (Queen West) and found a lot of nice plaids, but the problem was that they were still around $40/yard. Given that I wanted to do a dual sided scarf, that would have come in around $90. No thanks. We continued our search, and I finally found a reddish plaid that had a good sized pattern. A yard only came to $13, so I was pretty happy with that price.

The second black plaid fabric that I used came from Fabricland. It was a little pricier at $25/meter, but I really liked it, and was eager to make the scarf, so I just went for it. Both of my fabrics were polyester and were 60″ in diameter, so I was able to make a fairly large sized rectangular scarf. In totally, the fabrics both came out to about $38, which is still less expensive than it would be to buy one, so I’m still categorizing this as a win!

As a bonus, this scarf is also super easy to make! Can you sew in a fairly straight line? Great, then you can make this cozy blanket scarf.

I started out by laying my black plaid fabric down on the floor, making sure that it was perfectly flat, and having the wrong side facing up. I then laid my red plaid fabric on top, with the right side facing up. I tried to line up the fabrics as best as I could, but it’s ok if it’s not perfect. Make sure that if your fabrics are different sizes, you put the large one on the bottom so that you’ll be able to see how far away from the edge you are when creating your border.

Leaving a 3/4 inch border (I originally made mine 2 inches, but ended up cutting it later to only 3/4 inch), pin all around the perimeter of your scarf along one of the lines of the plaid. This makes it super easy to make sure that you pin/sew in a straight line! If your fabric pieces aren’t exactly the same size, just trim off any excess!

Now, when I laid down both my fabrics, I kept staring at the red fabric, not loving the narrow yellow stripe that ran through it. I had liked it in the store, but when I got it home, I just wasn’t convinced anymore. I remember my mom talking about colouring fabric that she bought, so I decided to do the same. I took a permanent, very smelly, black marker and proceeded to colour all the yellow stripes black, which gave them a more gray appearance. It took me almost 2 hours, and resulted in my arms and hands being covered with black marker, but it in the end, I got a much nicer fabric. So, if you ever find a fabric that you almost love, but just want to change one thing, know that you probably can with a marker and a little effort!

Once you’ve got all your fabric pinned together, it’s time to sew. Starting at any edge of the fabric, sew using a reinforced straight stitch all the way down the length of that side. I used a reinforced stitch because I wanted to fray the edges later, and I felt that a reinforced stitch would keep all the threads in place still. I also back-tacked when I started sewing and when I came to the end.
As you near the end of your sewing your first side, stop about an inch away from the end. With your needle in the down position, going through your fabric, lift up your presser foot and pivot the fabric so that you’re facing the next side that you want to sew. Begin sewing in that direction and repeat for the next 2 corners.

Once you’ve sewn around the perimeter of the entire scarf, you’re nearly done! To finish the scarf, I removed some of the warp/weft threads that made up the border of the scarf so that it would have a more intentional raw border kind of look. All you have to do is basically just pull the threads out along the entire length of your fabric. I even got Nick to help me with some areas 😉 Don’t worry if your threads don’t pull out evenly along the entire length of your fabric, as you can see below, I wasn’t able to pull mine all the way to the stitching on one side. No one is going to be scrutinizing the edges of your scarf, so don’t get too upset if they don’t all come out.
Overall, I’m super happy with how the scarf came out, and love that the pocket of air in between the two fabrics helps to insulate the wearer 🙂 I’ve even used it as an actual blanket, so feel free to do that as well!

Let me know if you’ll attempt to make a blanket scarf like this! If so what fabrics or plaids would you choose? I’d love to see any finished products 🙂

xo, tess.