Flannel and Fleece are lovely to work with and so comfy for baby. Three Mom’s to Girl Scouts in my troop have had babies in very short succession. I wanted to make them something nice. This project has been great for me. I ended up extending my tool box and playing with my machine a bit:) aka…spending money on my studio..

I found this fabric at Joann’s on sale. They have 60% off fleece sometimes and I take advantage of that! I wish I had gotten more! I’ll wait for the next sale. I love this nursery fabric…soooo soft.

 

 

I’ve seen that a lot of burp cloths have three layers and are a bit bigger. I went a little smaller, and two layers. I was going to use a cloth diaper for the center, but played around a bit and cut it open….the center absorbing area is white fleece! I soaked different fabrics in water to see what held well. The fleece won. I went smaller (12″) to save on washing. I have also made some “mini’s” about 9″ long. I’ve had four babies…sometimes they spit up just a bit and you just need a little wipe. I’d rather have more small wipes then have to do laundry twice as often with bigger wipes.

 

 

Since I’m just using the two layers, this was a quick sew…mostly pinning it seemed. After doing the blankets I found these clips to use for the burp clothes. I love them! I’ve never used clips before but kept seeing them in the videos. Why did I wait so long? I still used pins for the blankets to keep the center from shifting. I was having a hard time with it, so I ended up Googling working Fleece and found that a walking foot was my answer. (I’m not here to sell things..but I was excited to find and use an affordable walking foot!) I had a walking foot for my old machine..sadly it didn’t work on my new Brother. I had to find one with a low shank and then I had to wait about 2 days to finish my blankets. I kept everything on my dining room table…(I know I’m not the only one who takes over the table..;) )

I found it 100% easier to sew the blankets with the walking foot. I didn’t bother with my burp cloths. Since they are small, they went quickly. I did learn that sewing with the fleece side down was a LOT better for me. I also set my stitch length to 3.5 for the first pass.

The process for both is the same since I used 2 layers for the burp cloths. I cut out my desired size and shape. I went with the natural cut of the flannel for the blanket size and matched it to the fleece and cut both at the same time. Good scissors are a MUST! I don’t love cutting fleece. A simple square for the blanket and I drew a bone shape on paper and pinned it to the fabric. I’ve seen directions that place it on the fold. Since I had so much fabric and didn’t want to unwrap the whole thing….I found it easier to layer it and cut the whole shape out. You could simply do a rectangle if you would like.

With RIGHT sides together I stitched with the 3.5 stitch length around the outside keeping about 4″ for the blankets and maybe 2″ for the burp cloths open for turning right side out.

I turned them, closed the opening with a clip, and ironed them all while watching The Bachelor and drinking a glass of wine. I love sewing:)

I top-stitched around the whole outside with a normal 2.5 stitch length paying careful attention to close the whole.

Bam…done. I hope they all enjoy the gifts and I hope you enjoy making some of these for the next Baby Shower you have coming up. It’s nice when you can make them all to match:) New moms always need burp cloths…..

Edit: I wanted to include a link to a sewing challenge I just found..it’s free and it’s through National Sewing Circle..which is awesome:) If anyone else is interested in signing up with me clink the link in text.

 

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