Hi, I’m Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Take a look at these quilts around
me; I am surrounded by cuddle fabric. Cuddle fabric is put out by Shannon Fabrics and it
is the softest, most amazing fabric ever and they sent me a whole bunch of quilts to show
you and I just wanted to show them all. So, I have as many out I could get out. I put
them up here.
Now, this is a really, really fun and quick way to make a baby quilt, but quilters are
often intimidated by a different type of fabric. Cuddle is a knit fabric and so you know it’s
a little bit different to work with, but I didn’t want you to be intimidated. So I’m
going to walk you through this myself.
Now, if you go to make one of these, you don’t have to buy yardage because they come in kits
just like this. And so they have a little pattern with them and they come in a kit and
I’m just going to go through this just like you’d go through it if you were making it.
And so this is the quilt, I think. I haven’t actually opened the kit yet haha, but I think
this is the quilt we’re going to work on today. And so let’s see how they did it,
because this is just really fun. Now I’m going to move this so we have a little more
view, even though that Scotty dog is so cute. Here’s our little pattern.
It’s going to show us on the front what it looks like and what we hope ours looks like at the end,
haha. It has a page of general instructions. Now one of the cool things about this is that,
because it’s a little different for quilters to work with, Shannon has all kinds of tips
and tricks for working with this cuddle fabric on their site. And there will be links for
that in the, in the description below. And you might want to go check those out, because
it’s really, it’s going to be really helpful to you.
Alright, so now I’m untying this. Let’s see what we’re going to get.
Alright I’m just going to slide it off, haha, I don’t have the, the fingernails to pull that knot
out. Alright, we’re unrolling this, and this is what you get in your kit. You’re
going to get your little piece of your animal fabric. You’re going to get your backing,
wait this is actually the, the binding I think. This is going to be your backing with these
little nubbies on it. And this is also, this is going to be the front, and then this is
going to be your little accent strip. So you’re going to get all these little pieces, but
let me show you how they work together. So let’s set our backing aside and our binding
aside right now. And let me move this out here a little bit.
So I’ll just move it over here. So you can actually see what we’re doing here.
Alright, so let’s look it up. Now, this is a mini chevron right here and you can see what they’ve
done on this right here is they have cut this out to match the look of the chevron. So we’re
going to do that and we have to find the bottom of our quilt. One of the things you want to
remember with cuddle is that it has a nap. Now a nap on fabric means that you can...
if you brush it one way it lays smooth and if you brush it the other way it gets all
rumpled and, see how rumpled that is? And if you brush it this way, it just lays right
back down. That’s a nap-- when your fabric goes different directions. And you want to
pay attention to that because you want your nap going down toward the bottom. So, this
is the bottom down here and we’re going to cut this so that we have an even zigzag
line all along. Now the easiest way to do that is going to be with scissors. So I am
going to just trim this right here and stay on the line, with any luck.
So, there’s my last one and your little quilt should look just like this.
There we go. So we’ve trimmed those chevrons off and they just look adorable. Alright, so we’re
going to go back to our, our, our directions now and we're going to say to make sure that
the nap faces downward. We’re going to lay this edge on top of and slightly over the
edge of our line. Now, this is kind of fun because this top right here is just going
to go up over this right here, just like that. And we want to check our nap again to make
sure it’s all running the same direction. I’m so glad they put that in there because
those are the details I kind of forget about. So, we’re going to check the nap again.
We’re going to carefully lift up the edge of the chevron and we’re going to position
it so that we can spray a little, slight spray of temporary adhesive.
So, this is basting spray, quilting basting spray and I suppose you could pin it or something
like that, but they suggested doing a little bit of that. So this is what we’re going
to do. I am actually going to flip this over right here, so that I can just spray a little
bit on here. I don’t want it to get on anything else and I just want it to be on the edge
of this. You’ll probably want to lay some paper down. I have this nice mat so I can
do that. And then I’m going to flip this back over, right here and I’ll lay this
down on my green accent piece. Hopefully it will stick on there. One of the nice things
about basting spray is that, because it’s... you can... if you get it wrong, you can lift
it up and reapply it and it’s, it’s going to still work. So we’re going to, whoa we
got our peaks sticking down here, there we go. We’re going to pull those out. Make
sure that’s nice and lines up. Don’t want any rumples in it. Alright, now that’s all
laid down on there really nice. Alright, let’s see what we do next.
So we’re going to smooth it in place and we’re going to stitch this in place with
a blanket stitch or a zigzag. The reason that the, this basting spray works so well is because
now it’s not moving anywhere. So you could pin it or other things, but this works really
well. See, I can just pick this up and go right to my sewing machine and I’m going
to find a zigzag stitch that I like and we are going to, actually you have to make sure
your needle is threaded, that’s a really good point. Haha sometimes I get over here
and I’m like, whoa. Alright, so you can blanket stitch this, you can zigzag it. I’m
going to zigzag mine. One of my favorite things about, about this cuddle cloth is that it’s
so forgiving. So, like honestly, I have made things before where, where I actually, where
I’ve actually used a different color thread and you lose the thread in there, you don’t
even hardly see the thread. You know, now I would say match it, you know, but, but you
really don’t really see the thread in this, which I really love. It’s very forgiving.
So I’m just going to keep zigzagging along here.
And every time you get to the point, you pivot. And this makes that, boy that spray, spray basting is so handy because it just
holds it on there, no pins.
Alright, so we’ve done that first little part. Look at that. Came out so nice. Now
let’s see what our next part is. So now we are going to, oh now we mark our chevron
just an inch up and we’re going to cut the same little chevron out of this, this green
fabric and just mark it. What does it say? Three-fourths of an inch from the bottom.
So they’re going to have us do that. So we’re going to mark this ¾ of an inch and
then were going to come up and we’re just going to cut it exactly like the other one.
Like that. This is kind of fun.
Alright, so we just finish our second row of chevrons and now we’re going to do the
same thing only we’re going to, we’re going to do it to this animal fabric like
this: we’re going to lay this on; we’re going to make sure again that our naps are
all going the same direction. So you get to pet this cuddle a lot and it just feels so
cute. Alright, so here’s that and then what we have to do again is use our basting spray
and you don’t want to get this on the rest of your fabric. So again, I’m just going
to kind of turn it over and just be super careful with it.
There we go. And then I’m going to make sure my nap is going the same way.
Like this.
Let’s see.
Make sure all over our little points say, “up”. And this is laid nice and flat.
Nap’s going the right direction, pat down our cuddle. Nope, it’s a little crooked
so I’m going to lift that up. Let me see how far up from here, I can go down a little
bit. Alright, make sure that stays on there. If you feel nervous at all about it, you can
stick some pins in there. And then we’re just going to zigzag this one just like we
did the other one. So let’s go on over to the sewing machine.
So now we’ve got the top done, you can see that we have a little bit off over here. So
we’re going to want to square that up. But we want to look at the directions and see
what they want us to do. Let’s see. We got it over, we’ve got the focal fabric, the
nap is lined up right, we’re going to stitch it in place, we’re going to trim our excess.
So we’re going to come back here and trim this, and that’s a good idea. So we’re
just going to trim this off, right here. And some of it is still... I’ve got my, my sticky
on there. So just pull it up from there. It’s not going to hurt anything, this stuff is
awesome, because you can just sew right through it and it doesn’t even affect your needle
(if you have the right kind). So then I’m going to trim the green one too.
Let me go ahead and I’m going to line up one side of this. Make sure it’s nice and straight.
And I’m going to line that up and because I have it, because I have it folded,
it enables me to, I think, cut it a little more even. See, I can see right here. You
know, I got this little place where it goes in and so I’m just going to keep the rest
of it nice and straightly folded. Be really careful when you do this, because you really
don’t want to, you know, cut this too far in and mess this up. So we’re just going
to go ahead and trim this off right here. It should really all lay out evenly, but for
some reason mine didn’t and maybe I just pulled it a little too hard or something like
that.
So now what you have is, you have a finished little top. So then you’re going to lay
it on your background. And honestly I can’t believe how fast this went and how easily
it went together. So here’s our backing right here and this, this is really cool because
it doesn’t take any, any, back, batting, I couldn’t think of the word, fluff-- you
fluff that stuff. I doesn’t take any of that. So we’re going to lay our batting,
or backing down. And it says to go ahead and spray your backing with adhesives so that
it’ll, it’ll temporally hold it down. So we’re just going to spray it a little
bit here. This is, I know my daughter uses this spray adhesive all the time for machine
quilting and so it goes together really easily. Now I’m going to lay this on here and I’m
going to keep most of the animals. I want to get the animals mostly on here.
So I think I’m going to end up cutting a little bit off the end, but I want to get
the animals on; I want to get it centered up and make sure we got this centered. We
don’t want to go off to a side. Alright, now what I want to do here is, I’m going
to flip this over, because this is a little rumply back here (I kind of figured it would
be). I’m going to roll it up, pull it a little straight. And, again, check your nap
to make sure it’s all going the same direction. You’re going to trim off this, this extra
piece right here.
Now yours may end up just the same size, and that’s fine, just watch it and make sure
that it, you know, that you’re going to be the same size because now all you’re
going to do is bind it. And you’re going to put your binding on the exact same way
as you would any other quilt. So, this is so fun and quick. So all you have to do now
is put the binding on it. You’re going to sew it on by machine and it’s going to be
done. You can wash it in cool water and, and dry it. I mean I have used mine, just I, I
love them, I love the feel of it, I love the cuddliness of it. I really love these baby
ones. I love that they went ahead and put some applique on them here. The little giraffe
head, the duck. Look at this princess crown. I mean, they’re just so cute. And so I,
you know, I just, I just love that they’re this easy.
Now the next thing I’m going to do is, I’m going to trim this off so it’s square, even.
And then I’m going to go ahead and cut my piece of binding into binding strips and we’re
just going to put our binding on our thick quilt and it’s going to be done. So, I hope
you enjoyed making this quick and easy baby blanket.
It really went to-, it went together fast and I hope that this video takes some of that
fear and trepidation out of working with cuddle cloth. It is awesome to work with and it just
makes, just the most beautiful, soft and cuddly quilts ever. So, we hope you enjoyed this
tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.