Baby Clothes Quilt Pattern

In this quilting tutorial, I'm cutting up Betty's tiniest onesies to make a baby clothes quilt. My daughter grew out of her cutest newborn onesies very fast. I wanted to preserve the memories of her earliest days in a fun quilt that she could play with for years to come.

Have you saved baby clothes, intending to make a quilt? A baby clothes quilt is a perfect way to preserve those memories and create a unique and meaningful item for your child. Here's how you can create your own baby clothes quilt.

• Baby clothes - onesies, t-shirts, etc
• 2-3 yards cotton flannel or woven cotton fabric
• Backing fabric
• Batting
• Piecing Thread and Machine Quilting Thread
• Sewing machine
• Rotary cutter, Long Cutting Ruler, Cutting mat

Watch this video to learn an easy stitch-and-flip foundation piecing technique. This method helps you piece stretchy knit fabrics from baby clothes. Follow along with this quilting video to make your own baby onesie quilt top:

The most time-consuming part of this project is preparing your baby clothes for the quilt. In the video above, I show the fastest method for slicing off the arms, neck band and onesie snaps. Salvaging the largest rectangles of fabric possible from the garment is the key to making this baby quilt quickly.

Don't worry about preserving every scrap. If you have a garbage bag full of baby clothes, you will have enough material to make a nice baby or throw sized quilt.

Once you get the baby clothes rough cut, then divide them into stacks based on their size. Trim the pieces into rectangles and squares of matching widths. Example: I had a stack of 4-inch, 5-inch, 7-inch and 8-inch wide rectangles. If you're working with larger onesies or baby t-shirts, you may cut wider pieces.

With your baby clothes prepared, it's time to prepare your foundation strips. These strips of fabric will support the t-shirt material and add structure to your quilt. Cut strips of fabric the same width as your baby clothes pieces.

I used strips of 100% cotton flannel fabric. If you use flannel too, make sure to wash it twice with HOT water before cutting. This will encourage the flannel to shrink before piecing.

No, you don't have to use flannel as your foundation fabric for this baby quilt. A good alternative is 100% cotton woven fabric, like a cotton bedsheet or quilter's cotton fabric. Personally I like the flannel because it subtly grips the knit baby clothes fabric and provides more stability.

My quilt ended up with the following strips:

1. 1 - 8-inch strip
2. 1 - 7-inch strip
3. 1 - 6 1/2-inch strip
4. 2 - 5 1/2-inch strips
5. 2 - 5-inch strips
6. 1 - 4 1/2-inch strip

How long should you cut the foundation strips? This is a great question because the length of the foundation strips determines the length of your finished baby clothes quilt. I cut my foundation strips 48 inches long.

Click Here to learn more about baby quilt sizes and find a handy size chart to guide you. Basically there isn't a right or wrong size, but bigger quilts do tend to be more useful as your baby grows up.

After piecing, you may notice the knit fabrics extended beyond the edges of your flannel strips. Trim the edges straight with your rotary cutter and ruler.

Next, arrange the rows of your quilt right sides together. Piece two together at a time, returning the strips to your quilt layout to preserve the arrangement. I used my walking foot for this piecing too and aimed for a 1/4-inch seam allowance.

You might have noticed that seam allowance wasn't very important for this quilt. Some quilts are forgiving like this, but not all quilts can be pieced this way. If you'd like to learn more about precise quilt piecing, please check out my book How to Piece Perfect Quilts.

If you enjoyed this style of piecing, you may like the Wonky Christmas Tree Quilt Pattern. This pattern features improv quilting techniques and the ability to piece tree quilt blocks any size and shape you like.

As I shared in the video above, I could give Betty this quilt top now and let her play with it. The knit fabrics would hold up for awhile, though the flannel strips would likely fray.

At this point this project is a quilt top - it still needs to be layered with backing fabric and quilted.

A quilt is comprised of three layers - quilt top, batting, and backing fabric. This quilt sandwich is secured with quilting stitches that run through all layers. It is our quilting stitches that secure our quilts and help them last for years.

I honestly ran into trouble quilting Betty's baby clothes quilt. I basted my quilt with just a Minky backing, thinking the flannel fabric foundation strips would be enough batting in the middle.

Unfortunately the knit fabrics really began to stretch as I quilted over them. The minky backing fabric I selected didn't support my baby clothes quilt top. With no batting in the middle, the fabrics stretched like crazy.

I decided to rip out of my quilting stitches and start over. It's not fun making a mistake like this, so I hope you will be able to avoid this particular issue!

After a lot of frog stitching (rip it! rip it!) I layered my baby onesie quilt with a woven cotton backing fabric and thick needle punched cotton batting. I used Quilter's Dream Cotton in the Deluxe thickness which allows your quilting lines to be up to 8 inches apart.

This batting allowed me to leave more space between the lines of quilting and put less stress on the knit fabrics. With less quilting, there was less opportunity for the knit fabrics to stretch, pucker and pleat.

Here's something batting rarely gets credit for: it's a great stabilizer.

When quilting over fabric, a thicker batting will help to stabilize the quilt top. You can hide small puckers and pleats when quilting with a thick batting too.

Make sure to use a batting with your baby clothes quilt. Select a batting that allows the quilting to be up to 6 inches apart or wider. This will ensure the batting has been manufactured to be stable, even with minimal quilting stitches.

I loaded Betty's baby clothes quilt on my rolling rail quilting frame. This quilting frame is set up larger than your quilt so you can stitch across from edge to edge in one pass. I can layer and baste my quilt directly on this style of quilting frame.

Did you know you can put a home sewing machine on a quilting frame?

I used our new affordable computerized quilting software, QCT 6, to plan, place, and stitch a large scale Heart Paisley design. This quilting process was so fast and easy, Betty's baby clothes quilt was only loaded on the frame for 2 hours!

The final step for finishing this baby quilt is to bind the edges. Click Here to find my three part quilt binding tutorial to learn all the steps to finishing your baby onesie quilt.

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day