Cloth Baby Wipes Sewing Tutorial

Sharing is caring!

Cloth baby wipes are so useful, even if you don’t cloth diaper. They’re quick and easy to make, especially if you upcycle cotton flannel receiving blankets.

Seems like everyone has a bunch of those stuffed away in a closet. Pull them out and create some cute cloth baby wipes, reusable hand wipes, or even washcloths for the family.

If you don’t have receiving blankets on hand, your local fabric shop has tons of cute nursery print cotton flannels to choose from.

For this cloth baby wipes sewing tutorial I’ve included a couple of ways for you to put them together. This project is appropriate even if you are brand new to sewing. You can use a zig zag stitch on your sewing machine to finish the edges, or use the “turn and topstitch” (T & T) method.

If you own a serger, these cloth baby wipes are even faster to sew up. Actually, the very first thing I made with my serger were cloth wipes from upcycled receiving blankets. And we’re still using them! The fit perfect in our Munchkin wipes warmer.

Materials:

1-2 yds cotton flannel (2 cotton receiving blankets are perfect)

sewing machine, thread, grid ruler, scissors or rotary cutter, optional self healing cutting mat:

Photo Tutorial:

Cut two 8″ X 8″ squares of flannel, one for the front of your wipe and one back. I love my omnigrid for cutting squares! You can chose coordinating fabrics or use the same for your front and back. Cut as many as you like or your fabric allows. I was able to cut 9 squares from one blanket.

 

To Zig Zag Stitch:

{If you have a serger, pin squares wrong sides together and serge the edges. If you’re just learning to use your serger, corners can be tricky, but there are videos out there to help you!}

Pin wrong sides together.

Set your sewing machine to a zig zag stitch, adjust the length and width. In the picture below I show you how a zig zag stitch set to length of 5 and width of 2 looks, followed by a length of 5 and width of 1.

I set mine to length 5, width 1 and zig zagged all the way around. Backstitch to start. At the corners stop the needle when it’s in the top peak position on the zig zag (is that a zig or a zag?), lift your presser foot and turn your cloth to continue down the next side. Remember to lower your presser foot back down!

Be sure to back stitch when you finish and you’re done!

You might have some stray fabric threads after the first wash, just trim them down. It shouldn’t happen anymore after that.

 

To Turn and Topstitch:

Pin right sides together. I used the same size squares so my finished cloth baby wipes are about 7 1/2″ X 7 1/2″ for this method. I use red pins to indicate my start and stopping points.

Start at one red pin, backstitch and sew around.

At the corners stop about 1/2″ from the edge, with your needle down in the fabric, lift the presser foot, turn your cloth, lower the presser foot and continue sewing down, repeat at each corner.

Stop at your last red pin and backstitch.

Remove your cloth from the machine and trim the corners and edges down to 1/8″

Turn your cloth baby wipe right side out through the opening you left.

Use a blunt tool like the wrong end of a seam ripper, crochet hook, etc. to push out your corners.

Fold in and iron the opening so it’s even with edge.

Topstitch, about 1/8″ from edge, I set my machine to 3.5 length, this closes the hole and gives the cloth a finished look.

And you’re done! Repeat til you have enough!

These really are an amazingly easy project to get started sewing or serging, useful too!

Happy upcycling!

Sharing is caring!