Tutorials

SELF BINDING BABY BLANKET

Hello there! I'm writing my very first tutorial and what has inspired me is this: I saw on Pinterest a tutorial for the same thing - a self binding baby blanket. I hate to say it, but the tutorial was awful. It was not clear at all (and I consider myself to know how to sew) and I ended up taking what I had sewn apart so many times, I gave up on that tutorial. I Googled to try and find more clear instructions for a certain part of the blanket and again, couldn't find anything very clear. After finding a youtube video that was the most clear (and now I can't find it again) I have decided that I'm taking what I learned from ALL the sources I tried and will come up with something that I think explains in detail, in a non-confusing way, how to make this wonderfully easy (once I understood it!) blanket. Once I figured it out, I made 3 yesterday (I wanted to make sure I had it down!) and one today. Definitely my go-to baby shower gift from now on! Please excuse my bad nail polish that needs to come off!

First of all, pick your fabric and wash it. You will need 2 choices, one for the front and one for the back. I have used both sides cotton, and one side cotton, one side flannel. I have some adorable minky fabric I'm going to try next, so use anything you are comfortable with.  Depending on what size you want your blanket, buy that much fabric. Keep in mind the front side is the smaller size, and the backside is the larger piece (includes the binding) and will always be 10" larger than whatever you make your front side. So if your front side is 34"x34", then your back side will be 44"x44". The first 3 I made are squared, and this one I made bigger, 34"x40" for the front and 44"x50" for the back which translated to 1 yard of my front and 1 1/2 yards for my back. 

back fabric

front fabric

 Once your pieces are cut to size, fold your back piece in half (wrong sides together) and mark the middle point with a pin. Do this for the top and bottom. Then fold the other way in half and mark the top and bottom centers too. 

Then do the same thing with your front piece, except do it with right sides together. Hope you can see my red pin there. So for both pieces you should have a pin marking the centers of all 4 sides.

Next, lay your BACK piece RIGHT side UP on your work space. Take your FRONT piece and lay it RIGHT side DOWN on your back piece, matching one side pin to pin, to the top edge of the fabric. Pin your top edge all the way across. See my yellow and red pins are at the same place.

 Then match up your top edges and pin all the way across.

I use a 1/4" seam allowance. You can use a 1/2" or 5/8" or whatever you're comfortable with. But whatever you choose, mark the beginning of your sew start to be that much from the edge, as well as that much from the edge at the end. So I marked 1/4" from my left and 1/4" from my right side.

Take it to your machine and sew.

Then, take your next side and do the same thing. Match up your center pins, top edges to top edges, mark your seam allowance at both ends and sew. When you start to match up all your sides, it's going to lay sort of funny and you will have this flappy thing at each corner - this is normal. It will all work out in the end. Do this same procedure for 3 of the 4 sides. 

For the 4th side, match up your center pins and top edge to top edge and pin BUT leave a 4"-5" opening in the middle so that you can turn your project right side out.

After you have sewn all 4 sides, bring your work to your space and take one corner and fold it at an angle to make a triangle, with your front fabric on the inside of your triangle. Match your edges together and so your flappy corner piece will be part of this triangle. This part is a bit tricky to explain, hopefully the pictures help clear it up.

 Grab one side and fold it towards the other side, edges together.

It will be flat when you  fold it in half.

 Then take your top corner and fold it down until the edge of the fold matches with the rest of the folded edge. Sorry for the weird angle!

 Mark the edge that is the noted in the picture, NOT the edge that my fingertips are on (above).

Go to your sewing machine and sew along the marked line.

Now, the next step is to cut (1/4") from your sewn line. BUT I like to turn it right side out just to make sure I did the right marking BEFORE I cut the fabric. Once you cut, and it's wrong, there's not fixing. Yes, I know this because a tutorial I read was not clear and did not tell me to check it either. UGH. Very cute fabric, wasted. Well, not wasted because I can cut it up for other things but it won't be a cute blanket!

YAY! It's right!

Now you can cut off the excess. Do this for the remaining 3 corners, checking before cutting.

Now comes the fun stuff! Turn your blanket right side out and poke out your corners as pointy as you can using a pencil, chopstick or whatever that thing I have that's for corners lol.

Doesn't it look good & it's getting exciting closer to the finish?

 Now iron your blanket nice and flat. The best way to do the opening is iron the back/binding fabric flat and then fold under the front fabric slightly and iron flat.

Now it's time to do the top stitching and you're done! Stitch along the edge on the side of the front fabric (not the binding), all around the blanket being sure to close up your hole. 

 

All there's left to do now is stand back and admire your work! 

If there's anything in this tutorial that's not clear or you need more explanation, PLEASE let me know. Like I said, it's my first one and I really want it to be clear so others will not be frustrated trying to make this like I was with other tutorials.I'm off to try a new one with my cute minky fabric! And after that I think I will add some batting to the middle of a cotton one to add some poofy comfy-ness to it!

This project was shared where I Link Party!

UPDATE: Check out my Crafts & Projects tab on the blog to see the finished result! :)