Muslin/Gauze Swaddle Blanket Tutorial

We've never done the summer baby thing.  Both our kids were born smack-dab in the middle of winter, so these muslin swaddling blankets that are all the rage weren't on my radar.

Well, I'll be honest, they were on my radar, but at $49 for a package of 4, I knew it was a frivolous purchase that I wouldn't get much use out of in ten degree weather.

In case you haven't heard of the muslin blankets, they're made of very thin cotton, perfect for summertime swaddling or nursing covers.  Aden & Anais blankets started this trend.

Since this baby is due June 3rd, we definitely get to experience all things summer + newborn.  I knew that meant I'd need some of these bad boys.  Both of my babies have loved swaddling, but the normal swaddle blankets we use are too thick for a 75-78 degree home (depending on who is controlling the thermostat, ahem).

When I first saw cotton gauze fabric, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it: make muslin blankets!  Now, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure this gauze fabric is the same exact thing as "muslin," but it's not called muslin so whatever.  We'll pretend.  It's soft and stretchy and thin and awesome.  And guess what?  Only $3.98 per YARD.  Yeah.  Buy yours here in lots of fun colors!

I went with one yard per blanket, but in hindsight I'd go with 1.25 or even 1.5 yards each for a bigger blanket.  At that price, you might as well.

So...go ahead and pick and buy your fabrics.  Here are mine, gender neutral enough since we don't know what this babe is and I'm sick of yellow and green.

This fabric is supposed to be perma-wrinkly, so it's very forgiving and makes this project a breeze.

Trim off the raw edges.  The blue and black fabrics had selvage edges that didn't fray at all, but for some reason the white edges were frayed on all four sides, so for that one I had to trim all four sides.

Don't ask why I focused on my fat, swollen preggo hand here.  I make no claims to photography!

I didn't measure and cut my fabric out at all as I bought a yard of each so I wanted to take as little off the sides as possible, but if you're buying in bulk, you can choose what size you want your blanket to be and cut it down to size.  47 inches X 47 inches is a nice, generous sized blanket and great for swaddling, but mine are smaller since I only got a yard.  Once I have a newborn to test them on, we'll see how I feel about their size.

Now here is where you can be all accurate and technical...or not.  I went with the latter option since these are just for me.  Cotton gauze is not the easiest fabric to fold and measure well and it's not easy to iron, so I didn't bother.  You could fold down all four sides 1/4 inch, iron, and then fold another 1/4 inch and iron again.  I didn't.  I just winged it because, like I said, this fabric is forgiving.

So I folded it roughly 1/4 inch and then in another 1/4 inch and pinned every so often.  No ironing.

Since I had good selvages on two sides, I took an even shorter shortcut and didn't fold or bother sewing those sides.  No need, as they won't fray.

So then I sewed the two pinned sides.

Voila!  Instant, easy, gauzy, breezy, muslin swaddle blanket.  :)

Now, for the next option.

This one was easier and in the end, I liked it better.  The only warning I have to give is that I don't have a baby to test this on at the moment, so it hasn't been washed and worn.  I'm not sure how this one will hold up over time, so I'll report back later.

Like I said above, the white cotton gauze had 4 raw, frayed edges, and I really didn't want to mess with folding all the edges in twice.  Call me lazy if you will, but at about 38 weeks pregnant I'm taking as many shortcuts as I can!

So, I freehand folded each side in about 1/2 inch (whatever floats your boat will work, though - 1/4 inch, 3/4 inch) and zig-zagged all the raw edges up.  This theoretically should keep the edges from fraying and ended up looking super cute!  I chose a fun minty colored thread and I love how it turned out.

To start, I folded one edge and then the other edge up and started zig-zagging there (basically I overlapped sides to start off with).

Then I went around all four sides and did the same, briefly stopping close to the end of each side to fold up the corner of the next side, like so:

In the end, this option also appealed to me more because the blanket looks more reversible.  You can't really tell what side is supposed to be the inside of the blanket and what side should be the outside.

Here's a comparison of the two finished edges.

I still have the black cotton gauze fabric left, but I think I'm going to wait until baby is here so I can use hot pink thread if baby is a she and a fun blue or maybe gray thread if baby is a he.  :)

So...there you have it!  Not difficult at all, slightly time-consuming only because cotton gauze is a little tougher to work with but so worth the savings and the ability to choose your own fun colors!