Easy Pretty Burp Cloths

So I hope you all will let me go all baby crazy on you for a post or two. I will be 38 weeks prego tomorrow & am in full on "gotta finish making things for the baby" mode.  Today I want to show you how I made some burp cloths that are BIG (because seriously those little ones they sell in the stores don't do crap) and aren't fully covered in fabric (I've seen tutorials where one entire side is covered in fabric or there is a strip down the middle and fabric doesn't absorb as well as the diaper they are covering).
Anyway, I wanted to use those cheap-o Gerber cloth diapers they sell everywhere (12 pack of the kind you need pins and diaper covers to actually use as diapers) as burp cloths but of course I wanted them to be CUTE while retaining their absorb-abilty (is that even a word?).

Easy, Pretty, Functional Burp Cloth tutorial:

Here's what I did:

Supplies needed:
1 cloth diaper, large-ish scraps of fabric (fat quarters are great for this- you'll get approx. one burp cloth out of every fat quarter), iron, pins, scissors, sewing machine & some sort of measuring device.

Step 1: You WILL need to iron your diaper. Trust me. when you take one out of the package you will see this. You might as well iron your fabric too while you are at it.

There nice & ironed!!

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Step 2: Lay your diaper out & position your fabric wrong side UP on top. Determine how much of a 'wrap around' you want. Mine was about 3" so I put my fabric 3" away from the edge. (See how I oh-so-accurately measured it? It's a BURP cloth people- RELAX your perfectionism!) Ok now you can pin your fabric to your diaper if you want or just pick it up and put it on your sewing machine (guess what I did....).

Step 3: Sew a straight stitch from one side of the diaper to the other. This is just to secure the fabric to the diaper at your 3" line.

Step 4: Leave your diaper where it is and just flip your fabric over. Iron to make a nice crisp hem/seam/whatever.

Step 5: Flip the whole thing over (diaper and all)

Step 6: Your fabric will be wider (or it should be...did I not mention that? hehe hopefully you read the whole tutorial BEFORE starting to sew!) than your diaper on the sides so you need to fold down & iron the little side pieces to get that hem that was created on the front of the diaper when you flipped the fabric over and ironed. See that picture up there? Not perfect! Just fold and iron. Seriously.

Step 7: Fold in the sides & iron them.

Step 7: This is where it gets hard to explain. Take the bottom raw edge of your fabric and fold it up bring it up around the back of the diaper. See the arrow? That is my seam from the front. I had a large piece of fabric so I just folded the fabric back on itself until I saw the seam. I ironed the fold. (If you pre-measured your fabric- or measured at all -you can just skip the next couple steps until I get to the sewing again haha)

See? All ironed and the fabric is about 1/2 inch higher than the seam. (That is the wrong side of the fabric facing up because it is pulled around from the front of the diaper then folded back on itself-make sense?)

Step 8: Un-fold the fabric and cut along the ironed crease which should be 1/2 inch right above the front seam-make sure you are only cutting fabric & not the diaper!

Step 9: Welcome back if you are a pre-measurer and skipped those last few steps! Fold the raw edge of the fabric under (the opposite direction) Iron it under & pin in place, line up your hem with the seam!

Step 10: Put your fabric wrapped end of the diaper into your sewing machine as shown above. You will start topstitching at the left top corner and sew up the side of the diaper. When you get to the corner (I'm coming up to it in the picture above) ....

Step 10a: Stop with your needle down (see arrow in picture above? it's pointing to my needle being down still), lift the presser foot....

Step 10b:Turn your diaper (arrow in above picture is still pointing to the needle but now the diaper is turned), put the presser foot back down and keep sewing down the fabric. Do the same thing at the next corner until you reach the right hand corner. There is no need to sew along the bottom where the fabric wraps from the front of the diaper to the back because it's just a fold not a seam. You can if you like though.

Step 11: Repeat steps 1-10b for the other end of the diaper. You're done! Make a bunch!

 Aren't they cute!? These make great baby shower gifts or you can also do this with plain dishcloths to dress up your kitchen or give as gifts! (See not just for babies!)

Have a good weekend!




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