I was inspired by my friends Alice and Tom‘s hand made burp cloths and receiving blankets, so I spent a Saturday afternoon at Stone Mountain (one of the best fabric stores EVAR) with Alice picking out some fun fabrics. It was a tough choice – they have so many amazing, fun, colorful prints! I ended up with a nice little pile of fabric.

I followed Alice’s simple advice for making the burp cloths. They are 9″ by half the width of the fabric (roughly 20″), flannel on one side, terry cloth on the other. Sew together wrong sides facing, turn inside out, and sew along the edges. Easy as pie! All told this took about 1/4 yard of flannel and the same amount of terry for 2 burp cloths.

My first one came out nicely.

So I pushed ahead and made the rest.

The receiving (or swaddling) blankets are equally easy. Again, I followed Alice’s advice. Each blanket is a square of whatever the width of the fabric is – usually 42″. Flannel on one side, quilting cotton on the other. Wrong sides together, sew together edges, then add blanket binding and miter the corners (there are a million tutorials on the internet, I just kind of winged it). I used Wright’s satin binding but I’m not 100% in love with it because the edges are kind of scratchy. I’m going to try rounding the corners and using cotton bias binding next. These used 1 1/4 yard each of flannel and quilting fabric, plus the binding. A single package of satin binding — 4.75 yards — is just the right amount for this project.

The first blanket came out surprisingly goth. It’s amazing what black satin can do for a project. My husband, who rarely wears anything but black, really likes this one.

The second blanket is decidedly less goth. I wanted bright, bold, contrasty colors that will keep a baby’s interest.

More to come! So far I’ve only made the two blankets, but I’ve got several more in the pipeline. A few are gifts (babies everywhere!) so I won’t post them here until I’ve given them to their intended recipients. 🙂