How I Made a Simple Baby Blanket

Hi folks!  I decided a couple of days ago that I wanted to try my hand at making a baby blanket.  No, not for me, I don't plan on having any of those around for several years.  I wanted to make it for a coworker who's due in a couple of weeks.  I've never made a blanket before, but I've seen plenty of them around on Etsy and the like.  I really like the ones with the minky dot on one side and regular quilting type fabric on the other. 
I was thinking about this idea yesterday while I was at Jo-anns, wandering the fabric aisles, and decided to take the plunge and make one.  I wandered right into the baby section and started looking for boy's fabrics.  They had quite a selection, and I finally settled on a light blue flannel that had little animal faces in colored dots.  It didn't take me too long to find a coordinating flannel with just dots, and some blue minky fabric.   I also picked up some fusible fleece to give it some extra snuggly and cushion.

This is what I came home with.  I bought 1 yard of the minky dot, 1/2 yard
of the dots,  and 1 yard of the animals, and one yard of the interfacing.

When I got home, I started working right away.  After I squared up the edges of the animal print, I checked it against the fleece and trimmed that to fit.  Then I pinned the edges to make it easier to transfer to the ironing board and keep it all lined up.

After I finished ironing on the fleece, which was probably the most time consuming part, I got out the dot fabric and cut it into 3.5in wide strips. I sewed the strips together, then ran them through a 2 in bias tape maker to make the blanket binding.

You can see that I also stitched the minky to the other side here.

After that, I lined up the minky with the now fused animal print/fleece and trimmed the excess.  I then basted them together, as you can see in the last picture.  The final step was to simply attach the binding to the outside edges.  
If I ever make one of these again, I think I will need to get a walking foot, since the binding did bunch some.  The minky was a little tricky too, like any knit-stretchy type fabric.  It does pull a little on the rest so that it takes some coaxing to make it lay flat.  Overall though, I would say the blanket was a success!

The finished product! Its about 35in x 40in in size.  Perfect as regular blanket or a floor play area!

Do you guys have any tips/experience to share about making baby blankets or working with minky fabrics?