In the south, these are still fairly common, though they are waning in popularity. A few older families still like them. I have made my fair share over the years.
Carol is right, we used to 'sew' the flowers onto a burlap cloth by wiring the flowers and greens and threading the wire through the burlap as though you were sewing a thread. Took at least two designers...........with the blanket suspended from a doorway.......one designer each side......one pushed the wire through and the other one pushed it back. Usually a typical blanket took a good four to six hours using the old sewing method.
Thankfully, the various glues have made 'sewing' unneccesary.
They are expensive, the last one I did, I quoted 1500 dollars for the blanket.....and that was NOT a solid, flower filled design. ( That is One Thousand Five Hundred dollars, not Fifteen dollars )
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I do not have a picture of the design, I do remember the basic appearance though.
I'll walk you through the more modern techniques that I used in creating the design.
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First, you glue two layers of burlap or any rough textured fabric - you can use the astroturf however, I have found that to make the design excessively heavy. ( Even using the lightest materials though........you'll still need at least two people to carry the design.) I like to use 3M 77 spray adhesive rather than DM tack 2000 ( 77 is way less messy )
This is important, you need to work from the edge in toward the center.
Once the layers of burlap are secure, I begin the design by creating a foliage border.......this is usually two layers of galax overlapping each other. I use cold glue on the back of the leaf and 77 on the burlap ( I have found the comination of glues holds quite well ), the next few rows are created with flowers, I like to use a flower with a flattened calyx such as cushion chrysanthemum. Cut the head of the flower leaving no stem on the bloom, you want the back of the flower to be as flat as possible. Dip the back of the flower in cold glue and attach to a dollop of cold glue on the burlap. Repeat for two or three rows of flowers. I then create another foliage border.....using a variety of foliages........if there is filler such as babys breath, caspia, etc, I intersperse that with the foliages and make that border fairly wide. I then create another border of flowers similar to the first one.......using either different flowers or a variety.
Now, on the older style of blankets......you would continue the aternate rows to the center. However, the last one I did........once I completed the foliage and filler area, I wired on a smithers oasis floracage and created a casket spray at the center of the design.
Turned out to be a gorgeous design. If I had to make one today, I could not do that for less than an even two thousand dollars now.
