advice for sewing baby blankets

August 22, 2015 2:13 PM

I love sewing small burp cloths and baby quilts for friends. But I'm hitting a wall, where friends are having babies faster than I can churn out little quilts. If you have some experience sewing or quilting, can you help me figure out a better method with decent results? These aren't meant to be heirloom pieces, just heartfelt and unique small blankets or quilts to welcome a new baby and brighten their days.

I started off sewing quilts with hand-sewn binding. I'd make the quilt top, stitch it to the batting, baste or pin it to the back, make the binding, machine stitch the back of the binding on, then pull it around the side and hand-stitch the front of the binding on. (Hopefully I'm explaining that clearly!)

But I'm slow at doing the binding, and I can't knock out a little quilt in a day with this method. I started getting annoyed and would stall out with multiple tops and not have enough time to do the binding.

Then I tried making a few little blankets by doing a cute top, making a sandwich with a piece of flannel (for warmth) and the quilt back. I'd machine stitch that sandwich closed while it was inside out, leaving an opening, then invert it so it's right-side out, and do another layer of top-stitching on top.

That seems to work okay, but I'm worried about the layers getting all bunched up over time and with repeated washings. Would you recommend putting stitches throughout the quilt to prevent shifting?

Basically - I love sewing relatively fast but cute blankets for friends. I'd like to balance my time spent doing the sewing with their purpose, which is to be hard-used by babies! These are meant to be useable every-day items, not heirlooms sitting in the corner of their nursery. I don't want to spend zillions of hours on each one anymore.

Do you have tips on specific techniques I can use instead? Or links to tutorials which explain the pros-and-cons of some of the alternative methods?

I'm basically self-taught, and while I've taken one short course at our local fabric store, my schedule is wonky enough that it won't be possible this semester.

Thanks for any advice or suggestions!

posted by barnone to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (12 answers total)

So I make a baby quilt in a day that is almost all machine sewn. Assemble top (usually graphic, high contrast black and white 4" squares 8x8 since babies see it best). Assemble top, cotton inner and backing. Machine sew a grid through the "sandwich" with 4 or 8 lines horizontally or vertically. Triple fold and iron the binding. Cut the quilt into a square. Machine stitch the binding to the back for each side. Turn it right side up and machine stitch the binding from the top through all the layers. I make sure to tuck the corners in like a present (sometimes I through a couple hand stitches in the corners to hold the folds better than pins before top stitching. The top stitching shows but I find it his well with the quilt stitching on the rest of it.

I try to power through 2 or 3 tops at a time then I can assemble in an evening as needed.
posted by saradarlin at 2:25 PM on August 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was given a machine-sewn quilt with no batting and I love it - heavier than a sheet but cool enough for summer. We use it almost daily (to the point that I will have to make some repairs soon). The "quilting" is three diagonal lines across the whole thing, and the binding was machine sewn and I don't care that the stitches show.

I have made a quilt using the backing as binding - just folder over twice at the edges and stitch down. Stitches show but who cares? People who don't quilt don't notice and people who do are making their own for their babies, so no biggie.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:32 PM on August 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Would you recommend putting stitches throughout the quilt to prevent shifting?

I would. Your second method is I think basically a pillowcase binding? I have a quilt with a pillowcase binding that was tied instead of quilted, and when I took it apart to repair recently because it's ripped all along the edges, I discovered the batting is also a mess and has holes throughout it. On preview, gridlines like saradarlin suggests are probably the best for structural integrity and speed.

This is a machine-sewn binding technique that looks cool, but I haven't tried it; may be time-consuming. This is more of a normal way to do the binding all by machine.
posted by clavicle at 2:37 PM on August 22, 2015

Look up the lap duvet from Purl Bee. They mention the no binding method but with machine tacking. It's fast and will still stabilize your layers. You could also do lines (long or short) or shapes and pull the tails through. The purl bee tutorial recommends using some kind of wool batting with a lot of loft. I just use cotton for kids.
posted by vunder at 2:47 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I sometimes make a lap quilt with polar fleece backing instead of any batting. You only need minimal "quilting" to keep the two layers together.
Then you can machine sew the binding on as well (easier because there isn't a batting layer in there making it thick.)
posted by nat at 3:45 PM on August 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

There's a tutorial for making knit baby blankets I've been meaning to try -- Part One, Part Two. No serger required and it only requires a single layer of jersey + jersey for a binding. Also, the binding is fully machine-stitched.

If you've tried the traditional machine-stitched binding methods and they did not work for you, zig-zag machine-stitched binding is another option and is a bit more forgiving.

For quilting multi-layer baby quilts, like your flannel blankets, I really like machine tacking, as suggested by vunder. If you don't have an oval stitch on your machine, just set your stitch length very short, and use a zig zag.

For basting the quilt front, batting, and backing, I love spray baste (the 505 is the preferred brand for most people). Way, way faster than pins. I do wash before giving the finished product.
posted by pie ninja at 6:18 PM on August 22, 2015

I've found machine binding tutorial really helpful when making baby blankets. You didn't mention it but buying charm squares (fabric pre-cut to quilt-square size) made a huge difference in how quickly I could whip together a blanket. If you search online, they're got lots of different names (charm packs, charm squares, quilt squares, etc.) for trademark reasons, I think. A lot of the patterns are pretty cheesy, but I've had good luck buying more trendy ones from Fat Quarter Shop and Missouri Star Quilt Co.
posted by whitewall at 7:18 PM on August 22, 2015

On the super-super simple side: Purl Bee's Oxford Burp Cloths. Cut, sew, turn, topstitch, done, and you can pick a beautiful fabric for the top, which takes the pressure off of quilting a top.
posted by third word on a random page at 8:26 PM on August 22, 2015

"Self-binding baby quilt" might be a good search term for you to use.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:29 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

My friend made a favored blanket for my baby girl. It was slate blue polar fleece with a 3/4 inch strip of yellow eyelet lace around the edges, the end. The lace was piping with the lace gathered by the piping, straight out of the fabric store. I still have it 27 years later, so simple, but perfect.
posted by Oyéah at 10:30 PM on August 22, 2015

I am mostly self taught too and haven't done many projects. But all of the quilted pieces I've done are envelope (inside out) bound and then machine quilted. I just carefully reverse over my start and end points to secure them. Not elegant, but these are mug rugs made for heavy use and lots of washing and so far no one has told me that a seam has come loose. I'm pretty lazy and actual binding is scary to me. I also hate using pins, so any holding together has been done with washable glue or just the friction created by highly starched fabric.

Quick lame photo album of my last project

I just topstitch around the entire perimeter so that the open edge is not visually odd, then fill in the quilting, ending it on an edge. In the photos, the tabletopper thing (big square) is the the largest thing I've done, and I didn't fill in as much quilting as I'd've liked, but it worked out well. I could have just run parallel lines or a grid over it. My stepmom was thrilled.

Would be happy to go into more detail about the process later, if you like. But I really need to sleep.
posted by monopas at 11:32 PM on August 22, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. Will be trying these out in the weeks to come. I'm not sure that I even want to make the bias-cut binding because it seems to take me forever...maybe I'll get faster as I go. Self-binding quilt might be a better option for now.

Thanks again!
posted by barnone at 2:23 PM on August 24, 2015