Baby Doll Pouch Blanket Tutorial

In case you missed my Baby Doll Pouch Blanket Tutorial over at Riley Blake Designs, I’m bringing this one back to The Cottage Mama.

Several years ago I made a baby doll pouch blanket for my girls when we were expecting our baby boy, Caspian Finn. I meant to blog about it and it just never happened. Ironically, it was made from some of my favorite boy car themed fabric called ‘Wheels’ from Riley Blake Designs since both the girls wanted baby boy dolls (with the excitement of the impending arrival of their new baby brother). Now that the girls are into baby girl dolls, I thought I would make another one in more girly fabric and share a tutorial so you all could make one as well!

This is a quick, afternoon sew, but is a gift that will be treasured for many years to come. I’m going to share with you a simple variation, but you could get much more fancy with the piecing and quilting. I used one of my favorite new lines, called ‘Country Girls‘ by Tasha Noel for Riley Blake Designs that will be released in January. I used all woven cotton, but flannel would work really well for this too! Whip up one of these Baby Doll Pouch Blankets and some baby doll diapers (tutorial found HERE) and you’ve got the perfect gift for a little one in your life.

Baby Doll Pouch Blanket

Supplies:

Fabric 1: 24″ x 24″

Fabric 2: 24″ x 24″

Fabric 3 (Pouch): 26″ x 13″

Batting: 24″ x 24″

3 yards fabric binding

Instructions:

Cut out all of your fabric pieces. Make your quilt binding. You can check out my mom’s tutorial for quilt binding HERE.

Make the pouch: Fold the 26″ x 13″ pice of fabric in half with the wrong sides together. Sew around the three open sides, leaving a small 3″ opening at the bottom for turning. Clip the corners, turn right side out and press.

If you would like to add a label to your pouch, now would be the time to do so. I love adding a label to everything I make for that special added touch. You can visit this post to read more about where I get my garment labels.

Lay out one of your 24″ x 24″ squares of fabric and position your pouch at an angle in the center so that it looks visually appealing to you. Edge stitch around the three sides, leaving the top edge open. Make sure to sew some reinforcement stitches by backstitching several times at the beginning and the end……..kids can be pretty hard on toys when they play and we don’t want them to rip off the pouch.

Sandwich together your other 24″ x 24″ piece of fabric with the batting in the middle and your pouch piece of fabric as well. Line up all the edges. Now this is where you can get creative with your stitching. I simply picked a line of the pinwheel fabric to follow along to sew a square and sew all three layers together. You could add more stitching than I did, just make sure you don’t sew through any part of the pouch.

Once you have your three layers stitched together, you need to attach your binding to the quilt. If you are unsure how to attach quilt binding, you can check out my mom’s tutorial found HERE.

Then slide your baby into the pouch, wrap her up and cuddle away!

This baby doll blanket is so great for little ones because it keeps their baby dolls safe and secure so they don’t fall out of the blanket. You can choose to make your blanket larger or smaller as well as alter the size of the pouch. I like to make the pouch on the larger side so that it fits our bitty baby dolls that are a little bigger, but it still works for our smaller babies as well.

Until next time…….Happy Sewing!