How a Blue Mink blanket gets made, start to finish

If you're wondering why our blankets take 3 to 4 weeks, fair question. You can get a blanket from a big store tomorrow. The short answer is that nothing is made until you order it, and every one goes through a few sets of hands.

Here's the long answer.

1. It starts with an artist

We don't draw the designs ourselves. Every pattern on our blankets was illustrated by a real artist we've worked with. Some paint in watercolour, some do flat digital illustration, and one painted our Australiana design by hand.

We usually go to an artist with a theme ("Aussie animals", "retro aeroplanes", "woodland") and a rough idea of what we need. They send back the pieces as separate elements. A few big "hero" pieces, and a bunch of smaller ones to fill in around them.

2. Then it goes into Illustrator

This is where I come in. I lay out every design in Adobe Illustrator, which is the fiddly bit.

Each blanket has two sides. One side is a repeating pattern, with the artwork scattered around and the child's name dropped in between, over and over, at different angles. The other side is a feature layout, with a few big pieces of art around the name in large letters.

Getting a pattern to look natural takes longer than you'd expect. If you're not careful you end up with all the koalas in a line, or a gap that your eye goes straight to. I move things around until nothing jumps out.

The name is set up so I only have to type it once and it updates everywhere on the design. That's how we can personalise each blanket without redrawing the whole thing.

3. Your order comes in

When you order, you type your child's name into the box on the product page. I open the design, type the name in, check that it sits nicely (long names sometimes need a tweak), and export a print-ready file.

I read the name against your order before the file goes anywhere. A blanket with the wrong name on it is a pretty sad parcel to open.

4. A local printer and sewer make it

The print file goes to our printer here in Australia. They print both sides onto soft minky fabric, then the two layers are sewn together into a double-sided blanket.

This is the part that takes the longest, and it's usually a few weeks before your blanket is ready.

5. We pick it up, pack it and post it

Once it's ready, we pick it up, check it over, fold it up and send it off with Australia Post.

And that's it. Two of us, a few artists, a printer and a sewing machine.

Why we do it this way

We could probably get blankets made overseas for less. But we wanted something that felt special, with proper artwork rather than clip art, made by people we can actually go and talk to. That's worth a few extra weeks to us, and hopefully to you too.

You can see all the designs in our personalised baby blankets collection.