DIY Self Binding Baby Blanket

hi it's jan howell thanks for joining me for another quick and easy sewing project if you have a baby shower to go to or just have a baby coming into your life these baby blankets these miter corner self-binding baby blankets are so fun and quick and easy to make up you just need a couple pieces of cute flannel print one for the back and one for the front you may think that these mitered corners look really tricky and complicated and hard to make but they're really not and i'm going to show you step by step how easy it is to make you can make one of these up in just a little bit over just a little over 30 minutes i like to make a few of these up bundle them together for baby shower gifts you find that after making up one you can't wait to make up more so be on the lookout for some cute flannel pieces and let's go over the items and things that you'll need the materials and items you'll need to make your self-binding baby blanket are two pieces of fabric you can use flannel you can use other types of fabric but i like to use flannel and decide which piece you want to be the outside that you want to have be the binding i'm going to choose this cute polka dot pink polka dot piece for the binding and this for the front piece you'll need 40 inches of the back piece and 30 inches square of the front piece a rotary cutter and a rotary mat and a ruler is nice if you have one if not you can use scissors of course some thread the same color as or close to the color of your fabric a pair of scissors straight pins a pencil two safety pins and of course a sewing machine and a sewing machine needle we're sewing on woven fabrics and to get a nice straight top stitch i like to use a sharp needle or you can just use a universal needle so let's gather up your goods and we'll get started so to cut out the front and back pieces of your quilt fabric you decide of course you've decided which side you're going to use as the back and the binding edge you can pre-wash your flannel fabric if you want to i usually don't if i am giving it as a gift because sometimes when you pre-wash your fabric it it kind of loses that newness and it it kind of tends to look like it's been used so i sometimes there'll be a little bit of shrinkage but most likely your fabric your flannel will shrink if it is going to at all um both pieces the same so of my i decided to use this cute polka dot piece for the binding edge and as you can see when you buy fabric depending on the clerk or the person that's getting your fabric ready sometimes your your edge is not going to be necessarily straight most likely not so you'll need to straighten off the edge and fold it correctly so sometimes it can be folded kind of crooked so how you do that is just lining up the salvaged edge which is the edge that has usually i'll have a little bit of printing on it and it's a tighter weave towards the edge first off let's just go ahead and square off one of the edges here and just line up [Music] the folded edge or the salvaged edge on this on a one of the lines there i'm just going to line up the folded edge on this edge because it's closer to me and if you don't have a cutting mat and a rotary cutter you can just use a table a straight edge of a table or a big long ruler and to make sure the edges are straight and use another ruler to get that straight edge so i'm going to come to this edge here to square it off so i have a nice good clean edge to start with and work with then to get my length i'm going to measure out 42 inches and when i'm buying my flannel for my receiving blankets i like to get another an extra half of a yard to make some fun burp cloths with it and i have some extra to make some burp cloths with and that is a really fun project so we've got the length most likely this is around 45 inches before i cut the width of this side of the fabric i'm going to mark so this is a salvaged edge i'm going to bring the safety pin in a little bit and mark it so i can make sure that i remember which is the salvage is because once i cut this it's going to be hard to tell which was the salvaged edge and then i'll be able to correspond that with the other color of fabric and make sure the grain of the fabrics are all going the same way that'll make a difference when you wash it so it all just kind of doesn't get twisted and so that'll make sense a little bit later to make sure the fabric is straight i'm going to fold it in half so i have my salvaged edges lined up then i'm going to fold it in half in the center of the fabric and bring those edges to the edges of the fold and smooth it out from that point lining up the edges now if i fold this over those are pretty even let's see about the other side see how it's off just a little bit we want to make sure that that is totally straight so i'm going to flip it over line it up again and smooth out and then i will straighten that edge all right now i'm going to fold it in half this way line up the edges and i'm going to measure from the fold out half of the 40 that i need which will be so i'm going to measure 20 inches and cut it and i know which edge is the salvage edge because i have the safety pin in there let's do the same thing with the front piece so as you can see this is not straight and the edges aren't straight you'll know if it's twisted or not it won't lay really flat they'll be like this edge will just kind of be like contour let me just show you what it would look like if these were if this was off just a little bit if this was off see how it's see how it's kind of twist it won't lay flat this this edge is kind of just kind of funny so you kind of shift it and it usually won't be off too much so you can kind of as you hang it you can kind of see the fold fall in ball straight or not and if you really wanted to get technical about it you could take the edge of your fabric and where this is a woven fabric you could pull see how i pull that and so it's cut crooked because i can't get it to go straight you pull that and then then you would cut see how that's crooked so if you really want you that's another way to get a straight edge what you do is come to the center or the place or the where the fabric's the shortest and pull off a little piece of the threads in the in the fabric see if i pull it you can see how these threads are longer and then you can just take your scissors or your rotary cutter and cut it and get a really good straight edge but i'm just going to go with this technique lining up the salvages and smoothing it out so on this the front piece i'm just going to cut off the salvaged edge that'll give me some more fabric left over so this was the salvaged edge and to remember that i'm going to put my safety pin otherwise there's just really no way to tell so that's my salvaged edge and i'm going to measure the width and i have this extra to use for other projects so now i have my front piece the salvages marked with the pin and my back piece so let's take the back piece and fold it in half and mark the halfway point with a pin just putting the pin in right there do that for each side set that aside and we'll do that with our front piece as well [Music] and take your top piece back side facing up let's hit find our salvaged edge our safety pin there it is and we're going to place it right side facing down line up your center points remove one of the pins and then pin in place keeping that marked so as you can see this piece the top piece is a lot smaller five inches on each side and you're wondering how is that all going to work out but it does and it's the coolest thing so finding the center point of this side remove one pin and then pin in place still marking the center points [Music] so the next thing we're going to do is mark the stopping points at each corner the quarter inch stopping points and how to do that we're going to just take measure in a quarter inch and mark that with the pencil so just marking that point where that is the stopping points where we're going to sew to that point and not any further and mark that just the the front piece and we're going to mark it on the back of the fabric so no worries about it showing so the next step is to to sew it together instead of sewing just straight from edge to edge we're going to start from the center point back stitch line up your edges and sew to the stopping point and make sure that we don't sew any further down than this stopping point so when we're sewing from this edge to this edge i'm going to put a pin in the quarter inch at the quarter inch stopping point so that i can see it from the other side of the fabric so i'm going to sew down to this second pin that i want to stop right there and then when i flip it over to sew from the center you can just sew down to the pencil line let's go ahead and do that so we're going to sew from the center point that we have marked with a pin down to the corner and just before the the stop point that we marked with our pencil back stitch at this front and then end of your seam line up your edges and start to slow down and back stitch sew down to that quarter point now we're going to flip it over and we've marked where to stop with the pin i'm going to flip it over and do the the side directly across from it so when you go to sew this other edge this is what it's going to look like so line up your edges and then you'll have this little this little tab here this little wing of extra fabric and this is what this is what it'll look like but just take your fabric line up the end and pin that in place and you're going to sew right to the corner and that will come right about up against that on the last side that you're sewing together you need to leave about a six inch gap so that you can turn it inside out and i'm just going to measure about six inches down from the center point and mark it with a pin it doesn't have to be exact so you're leaving about that space and that much space and we'll sew from this point not the center point we're going to sew from this point to the stopping point on that last side and then also just like we did before from the center point down all the way to the stopping point again marking your place that quarter inch stopping point with a pin so that you don't sew past that so i'm gonna go to this machine instead of starting from the center point i'm gonna start from this point leaving this section open quarter inch seam allowance back stitch just take a second to line up your edges just fold that down and start to slow down remove your pin just manually go up to that point that other seam and back stitch so that's what it'll look like you'll look you'll get that right to the corner and we'll bring it over to the table and i'll show you what we'll do next so on that last side i sewed together i left that space right there open so that we can turn it inside out now let's do our corners our mitered corners and to do that the front piece in towards each other so the seams are lined up and it'll make a nice point with that extra the backing piece so we're just going to line the edges up make sure we have a nice fold this is the folded edge this is the seam edge really important here that we mark this correctly we are going to make draw a line from here but to make sure that we're getting a straight right angle you can take a piece of cardstock or just a piece of paper i'm just going to demonstrate with a piece of paper here so you can see what's going on here so i'm lining up the edge of a piece of paper with the folded edge and i'm going to drag it down until it is right at the edge of the seam line and that is where i would draw the line but i'm going to use a ruler and this ruler has a line on the this ruler this has lines on it so that i can get you don't want to be crooked like this you want this line to be lined up with the folded edge slide it down until it's just to the point of that seam make sure it's straight and then we're going to draw a line with a pencil you won't see this because it's on the wrong side of the fabric and then we have so we have this line we'll take it to the sewing machine back stitch and sew down here and then back stitch there so what you don't want to do is measure and line up with the cut edge the seam edge and then mark and draw a line here you want to make sure that you're drawing the line and lining up that place so that you have a perpendicular corner and edge there so i hope that makes sense really important to do that so we'll do that with all of the corners lining up the edges make sure that's nice and flat take your ruler line the line up or your or your pieces of or your piece of paper slide it to the edge of that seam and draw your line just going to pin that go to the next corner fold your edges together so that's a nice point you don't want to make it you want to make sure that the it's right at that it's making a point make sure your edges are even this is nice and flat you can remove your pin it's going to sew from that stopping point down to the edge so just put your needle in make sure you're at the edge of the point where you want to be so straight down that line that stitch do that for each corner so now that we've got all the miter corners sewn take your scissors and trim that seam down to a quarter of an inch just cutting off that piece so before you turn it inside out we are going to take it to the ironing board [Music] so bring the the front piece to the front and pull it open and press the seams towards the outside so we don't want the seams coming in we're going to press the seam towards the outside and i like to take the center point just kind of pull it so it's even and you can take this the very point and just clip that being careful not to clip the seam just cut that at a other corner right there and we can pull that iron that open if you want to it creates less bulk so opening up that seam with your finger and then we'll use it with the iron we have that corner point i'm just going to press it give it a little steam just going to work ourselves around the whole edge of the blanket take your corner flip the open it up just finger press that open and then hit it with the iron and again these seams pressing out so so now you can see that that's the the oh the place that we left open and we'll press that when we flip it inside out but just take that corner and make sure that that's laying flat clip your little seat one more side okay now we get to turn it inside out find that opening and just bring all that inside out get shake and this is where the fun is you can take a point of your scissors if they're not real pointy and use that to poke out the corners or use a the end of a pencil that's coming out pretty good with just my fingers go to each corner and poke out the corner and you can get rid of the safety pins now so now that we've pre-ironed the the seam allowance to the inside it makes it a lot easier otherwise it would be a little tricky to sit there and fold that makes it a lot quicker and easier so take your hands and just smooth it out and then we're going to give it a good nice a good nice press with the iron there you have it isn't that the coolest thing we're not quite finished we're going to top stitch and then close that opening up just go around the edges smoothing it out and then giving you a press so this is the edge where we left the opening i'm going to press up to that point and then see how there is just kind of open and the edges are showing the raw edges are still showing just going to press the top and then just going to fold that section underneath tuck it underneath and it'll be a quarter of an inch and i'm going to pin it in place pin it in place so now you're ready to top stitch we're going to be stitching on the the outside binding fabric just inside the seam there you can use a decorative stitch to go all the way around or you can just use a straight stitch that's up to you so go to the machine now and top stitch so i'm just going to sew just barely on the inside of the seam when you get to the corner point just leave your needle in lift up your presser foot and pivot back stitch at the end with your threads so there you have it we've sewn all the way around i'm just going to do a final press just all the way around and in the middle if you wanted to add a cute tag or label you can do that in the seam as you as you are top stitching a good place to do put the tag in would be the place where you left an opening so you have the opening so that the tag can just fit underneath there just kind of look on the other side where there might have been some wrinkles in the fabric on this side or that that natural crease that comes with when you're on the boat fold those up and i can't wait to make more i have some already fun pieces to put together a few more of these quilts these make such fun gifts roll them up put a cute ribbon around them

Channel: Jan Howell

Views: 454,191

Rating: 4.8570232 out of 5

Keywords: baby blanket, how to make a baby blanket, receiving blanket, self binding, mitered corner baby, mitered corner baby blanket instructions, mitered corner baby blanket, mitered corner baby blanket tutorial, youmakeitsimple, Jan Howell, baby gift ideas, receiving blankets for baby, receiving blanket tutorial

Id: 4d6QnCMErMU

Length: 35min 46sec (2146 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019