Soft and comfy dot fabric and (darned) rectangular towels that feel great

If you remember, I have made lots of flannel swaddling blankets. We use them as baby shower gifts. And sometimes new baby gifts, if there wasn't a shower. We give them in sets of four with an instruction sheet for swaddling a baby. I started out with a mountain of them. And they are dwindling.

I was ready to do something different, to replenish my baby shower stock. But I have sort of dug myself a hole. I need help figuring out what to do.


http://www.joann.com/soft-n-comfy-dot-fabric/prd33722.html#prefn1=type&prefv1=Soft+N+Comfy&start=1

That is the link to JoAnn's Soft and Comfy Dot Fabric. I have large pieces, smaller pieces. I have been picking it up on sale.

I was looking for Chenile (type) fabric to put on the back to make very tactile baby blankets. What put this in my head was a sensory blanket our little seven year old had as a baby. But, no Chenile (type) fabric anywhere that I can find. I looked for anything else, tactile, but all I could find was variations of fleece, all the same general feel. I thought about cutting up Chenile bedspreads, but the problem is the patterns. Cut up, it is just a weird fragment of pattern.

So then I found bath towels at JCPenney's that I liked.

http://t.jcpenney.com/tablet/jsp/browse/pp/product.jsp?Ntt=&ppId=ens6003920003&categoryId=cat100250084&deptId=dept20000012&subcatId=&grMode=&regId=&colorizedImg=DP0331201500202979M.tif&cmcatId=&currentDim=&dimCombo=&currentDimVal=&dimComboVal=

I bought them in (2) aqua, (1) light blue and (1) green. They were on sale for around $7. They are still on sale, I could get more. I picked the hems out, serged the edges to prevent fraying, and washed them. They washed beautifully.

So now I am sitting here looking at my pieces, trying to decide what (in the heck) to make.

The bath towels are of course very rectangular. That is (totally) throwing me.

The simplest thing would be to take a large piece of the comfy dot fabric, put it right side together with a towel, sew and turn right side out. But I am trying to figure out if/how that would be used with a baby. It would be very tactile. It would be weighted. But it would be very rectangular (30" x 56"). If I wrapped it as a gift, what would I say it was?

I have considered sewing two bath towels together. It would be almost a square. And it would have substance. It could be used for putting a baby on the floor. (I gave middle's former boy's mother a large square much like that, but made out of two layers of sweatshirt fabric, for her first grandchild, for visiting her house last year. I bought it at a craft show and was really pleased.) It would be a great pad for the floor. The towels would sew together easily, because I have the picked out hem edges (which are not tufted). And I could sew squares of the soft dot fabric in different colors (for the other side) to make it look quiltish.

I guess as I write, that is what I am going to do unless someone can suggest a purpose for the 30" x 56" size. Because, as I said, if I can think of a good (genuine) purpose, that would be easier to mass produce. But I am not making them unless they are very practical.