Whole cloth baby quilt with minky backing and easy binding

Some days, I’m in the mood for a quick project. This was one of those days. I had some minky backing leftover from a previous project and some large cuts of fabric I was probably never going to get around to using.

It’s like one of those cooking competitions – here’s this-and-this-and-this and you have one hour. Make a thing.

Challenge accepted.

Full disclosure – I actually meant to do this the super easy way where you sew it all right-sides-together with a little gap, then turn it right-sides-out and close the gap with a top-stitch all the way around the blanket. But I was tired, and ended up actually sewing it wrong-sides-together by accident and had to devise a plan for binding.

In my house, we call deviating from the recipe “chef-ing”, as opposed to merely “cooking”. Special bragging rights if the dish turns out well.

So I chef’ed this baby quilt, and ended up liking this version better anyway!

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Fabric needed:

Minky – cut to the size you want your finished blanket. (My scrap was approximately 32″ x 52″.)

Quilting cotton – cut to approximately 3″ or so larger than your minky on all sides ** after washing **

Note – because cotton shrinks and minky doesn’t, and I wasn’t planning to quilt this blanket at all, I pre-washed my cotton. (First time ever.) It really helped prevent the two layers getting all out of whack after the first finished wash, and I’m glad it did it.

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These photos were shot super quickly on my phone for a last-minute Instagram tutorial, but they’ll suffice. 🙂

Step 1:

Sew cotton and minky wrong-sides-together using a 1/4″ seam, and be sure to pin well so the layers don’t shift! No pictures of this step, sorry!

Step 2:

Trim the cotton until there is 1″ extra around all sides of the minky.

Step 3:

Fold the cotton over once, just up to the edge of the minky. A touch from the iron helps here to set the crease.

Step 4:

Fold the cotton over once more, covering the raw edge of the minky and clip or pin in place. (Love my clover clips!)

Step 5:

When you reach a corner, keep the first and second folds going all the way to the end.

Then, fold the corner down (you can see the crease in the above picture where I folded it, then unfolded to take a quick photo).

Then another fold, this time starting the first fold along the new edge.

Then finally, the last fold makes the miter! You should now be covering the raw edge of the new side with your second fold. Pin or clip well, and carry on with the double fold!

Step 6:

Sew in place – I recommend using a walking foot and sewing from the back. The original 1/4″ seam plus the binding stitches make a lovely double stitch pattern on the front.

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Easy peasy! If had more minky scraps I’d make a few more, they are so addicting!! And how sweet is that plaid?! It’s from Mad Plaid by Art Gallery Fabrics and it goes great with the silver Cuddle minky.

Lastly – a quick note on the binding technique. This is a quick and easy binding method, but it’s not what I recommend for quilts. Reason being – this method ends up with only a single layer of fabric over the edge of the blanket. Traditional quilt binding methods use two layers of fabric for more durability. If you’re curious about how I bind quilts, you can find a full tutorial in the Learn to Quilt series here. 🙂

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