A Quick and Easy Baby Quilt: How to Quilt the Easy Way

A quick and easy baby quilt tutorial for those who don’t consider themselves to be quilters! This quilt comes together incredibly fast! Use pre-packaged bias tape or make your own binding. It’s up to you!

I like projects that are quick. Projects that I can finish in less than a week,. Not something that would take weeks or months to finish. Maybe it’s because I’m a compulsive person.

When I get an idea in my head I can’t think about anything else until it is done. So the thought of hand quilting aÂ large project makes me stress out. Because I would constantly be thinking about that unfinished quilt!

My friend has been coming over lately to use my machine and we’ve had a great time making baby blankets as gifts. For being a beginner, she has made some pretty awesome blankets. How cute is that bias tape that we sewed around the edging of this easy baby quilt? LOVE.

Â I saw these darling fabrics at Joanns and decided to make Ruby a little quilt.

It was a small quilt. About a yard and a half. Perfect for dragging around and snuggling in. She absolutely loves it and uses it every day. The best part? I made it in less than 2 hours.

The quilting isn’t exact. It isn’t measured.Â Â It isn’t planned out at all, and that’s what I love about it. An easy baby quilt from start to finish. Fun wavy lines, from the top to the bottom, adding a fun design to the soft flannel fabric.

My grandma was an amazing hand quilter andÂ wouldn’t have machine stitched this little quilt. Her work was so detailed and perfect after years and years of homemade quilts. I cheated a bit, but because I machine stitched it, I actually finished it! And a finished quilt is better than one that was never even started!

So if you don’t consider yourself a quilter, but would like to try your hand at making an easy baby quilt in a couple of hours, this tutorial is for you.

Quick and Easy Baby Quilt

The smaller the quilt, the easier to machine quilt.

Sandwich a very thin layer of batting in between the top and bottom fabrics for your quilt.

I made a border around my main fabric with the orange chevron, but that isn’t necessary. Simply using 2 pieces (one for the front and one for the back) of fabric works fine!

Pin your quilt all over. Safety pins are nice since they don’t poke you as you sew, but straight pins are quicker and easier to pull out. I placed pins about 2″ apart. You can also use a basting spray to hold your fabric layers together.

This keeps the fabric and batting together while you machine quilt and I set my machine stitch to 3.

Starting at the TOP CENTER of the quilt, sew a wavy line down the entire length of the quilt. Going back and forth, not worrying about being exact at all.I have a walking foot attachment for my machine that helps sew through thick fabrics evenly, but it doesn’t work well for wavy lines. Since my batting was so thin my basic sewing foot worked fine, as long as I was diligent to keep my fabric pressed out flat and pinned really well. If you’d prefer to quilt straight lines, I’d recommend the walking foot. It works great.

ThenÂ start back at the top andÂ do it again a couple of inches to the right. Repeat this until you reach the right edge.

Then go back to the center andÂ do the same thing all the way to the left edge. Wavy lines (going from top to bottom) a few inches apart all the way to the left side of the quilt.(pardon my inept computer skills above, but you get the pictureÂ 😉

The reason I started in the center and worked towards the edges was to keep the fabric from puckering up and ending up with a bulge in the center of the quilt. By working from the center out, I was able to smooth the fabrics as I went. If it was a bigger quilt I would have rolled the sides up like a scroll to prevent bulk while sewing, but this was so small that it wasn’t really an issue.

hand pushing fabric through sewing machine

I used both of my hands to flatten the fabric as I was sewing through the layers.When finished quilting, trim the edges to make everything even and then bind it. You can use this fantastic quilt binding technique using fabric or use bias tape. I had some pink bias tape so I went with that.Â Â Here is a great tutorial for using bias tape.

When you are finished, you will have a darling baby QUILT that was just as quick to make, if not quicker, than a tied blanket….and personally I think it is cuter!

Here is the one we made for my friend’s niece!

And here are two more baby blankets that would be perfect baby shower gifts!

puppy flannel blanket and homemade baby shoes

The Perfect Little Baby Blanket

Easy Knit Receiving Blanket

Brandy

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Welcome! I'm Brandy, mother to 5 darling kiddos and a cute black lab named Toby. My husband is in the Coast Guard so we've lived all over the place, turning each house into a home. I love baking, sewing, making cute things with my kids, and sharing what I've learned with all of you!

Comments

Rachel G says

March 14, 2014 at 9:40 am

I love the fringed edge one – how did you do that?

- Brandy says
  
  March 14, 2014 at 10:22 am
  
  Hi Rachel,
  
  The fringed bias tape was purchased that way! My friend found it sold by the yard at Joanns. We just added it like you would any other bias tape. I can’t wait to get more of it, it added such a nice touch!
  
tere :) says

March 15, 2014 at 8:21 am

thanks for the tutorial!

Brenda says

March 15, 2014 at 12:54 pm

These are beautiful!

carol says

March 16, 2014 at 7:32 am

I understand you completely! i do quilt, mostly “in the ditch” and mostly baby quilts… i enjoy the complicated patterns but i have also bought the pre-printed quilt block like yours above and they too are beautiful, as well as practical… love the bias tape…

ANNAMAE ROBBINS says

September 4, 2018 at 9:33 am

I have a question about the ruffled bias tape…how did you connect the ends to finish the binding? I found a UFO from YEARS ago and it’s the ruffled bias tape binding! But I’m at a loss as to how to connect the ends of the tape to make it look nice!! Thanks!!

- Brandy says
  
  September 4, 2018 at 11:23 am
  
  I’m sure there is a right way, but I wasn’t sure about that either! We just folded the ends over as neatly as we could. The quilt was a gift that was given away years ago so I can’t show a photo of it. It wasn’t perfect, but unless you looked closely it wasn’t very noticeable!
  
  - ANNAMAE ROBBINS says
    
    September 6, 2018 at 1:09 pm
    
    Thanks Brandy! I’ll give that a try!!

Quick and Easy Baby Quilt

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