I love satin-edged baby blankets and so have all my kids! You know what I DON'T like? The pre-packaged satin binding you buy and sew on with a zigzag stitch - it never looks very good and trying to make the corners look perfectly mitered is a challenge even for an experienced seamstress. And I didn't even mention that unsightly seam that connects both ends of the binding (just not good)!
I decided to try something new... I'm not sure what you would call it but it doesn't have any eye-catching seams (in a bad way) and it has a professional touch. It involves sewing with your machine as well as hand-stitching.
You know what's awesome? I got a large king-sized plush blanket from Costco for $15 and cut it into 6 pieces. That's 6 soft baby blankets for $2.50/each plus about $2.50/each worth of satin material = $5/each!
SATIN-EDGED BABY BLANKET SEWING INSTRUCTIONS
1-1/2 yard plush fabric (at least 54" wide)
3/4 yard satin fabric (at least 54" wide)
Thread to match satin fabric
Sewing Machine
Scissors, Pins, Etc.
Hand Sewing Needle
Cut Your Fabric:
Cut your plush fabric into a 52 x 52" square.
Cut your satin fabric into FOUR 6" x 54" strips.
Prepare Your Binding:
Fold binding strips in half across the length with wrong sides together.
Iron strips flat with a warm iron.
Sew Your Binding:
Center and pin your binding strips over your plush fabric on 2 opposing sides. You want the raw edges of your satin strips about 1/4" away from the edge of your plush fabric. Stitch along the raw edge of your binding with a 1/2" seam.
Turn your fabric over and flip the binding to the other side. Line up the folded edge of your binding right along the stitches you created in the previous step. Pin binding in place across the entire edge.
Center and pin your last binding strips on the other ends. Notice these strips will be sewn on the reverse side of your plush fabric than how you sewed your first strips. Also, your first strips are only being held down with pins so make sure as you sew the other strips over them that their folded edges are lined up with the stitch line from the previous step.
Sew these last strips on just how you did with the first two, but fold over the excess edge of fabric over to the back side...
...so it looks like this.
Cut off the excess fabric from the first set of strips you sewed on so it is flush with the blanket fabric.
Turn the blanket over and pull up the binding like this.
Fold the binding over and match up to your stitches just like you did with the first set. Take extra care to ensure your corner looks nice and matches up perfectly with the edge. Pin entire length in place.
Hand-Sew Your Binding:
You will be doing a slip-stitch to sew down the free edges of your binding. Do your first 2 sides of binding (so you can hide your start and finish points inside the corners of the binding that overlaps)...
...like this.
For your corners on your last binding strips you'll make your slip-stitch run up the edge...
...then continue around your binding...
...and back down to the corner. For finishing off you can see in the picture I do a few loops at the corner to "tie-off" then I run my needle through the binding and out a few inches past where I finished stitching.. then I can clip my threads where they come out and there won't be any loose ends hanging off ready to unravel.
FINISHED!!
Labels: DIY, sewing, tutorial
