Make Hand Embroidered
Burp Cloths

These hand embroidered burp cloths are really easy to make and make a great personalized baby gift with a great handmade touch. The easiest way to make these burp cloths is to use regular old pre-fold cloth baby diapers. You can even make green eco-friendly embroidered burp cloths by using organic pre-fold diapers and organic cotton fabrics. You can buy organic cloth diapers from BabyEarth.com.
You can of course also make your own burp cloths from scratch and simply hand embroider them. Visit my page on making handmade baby burp cloths for a tutorial on how to make them, as well as a printable burp cloth pattern to go with it.

make handmade baby burp cloths

What you'll need to make these hand embroidered burp cloths:

pre-fold cloth baby diapers or make your own burp cloths
decorative fabric
embroidery floss
bias tape

The first thing you'll want to do is start with the hand embroidery. All I did was take a thin tipped marker and write the baby's name on the corner of the burp cloth. Make sure and use a washable marker in case you make mistakes. If you do not have the greatest handwriting I do have an alternative method to getting this technique down perfect. Rubber stamps! There are so many lettering stamps available on the market now, and even come in the clear block so you can see exactly what you are doing. The stamps come in all different fonts too. Just make up a letter stamp with clear rubber stamps and a clear block, spelling the baby's name. Use a light colored ink to stamp the baby's name onto the corner of the burp cloth.

make embroidered burp cloths

Now get out your needle and embroidery thread. Simply trace over the hand written or stamped baby name for a cute embroidered accent

handmade burp cloths Never attempted this before? It's not all that hard. The trick is to start from the underside and work upwards. Any loose threads will be on the back of the burp cloth. Work in very small sections at a time.My trick is to make a small line with the embroidery floss, then, starting from underneath, I make my next stitch further ahead and come back to meet the first stitch. I work the entire piece this way. In the end, do whatever works best for you. It will come out looking great and the new parents will love the handmade touch and the effort you put into it.

Once your embroidery is done it's time to move on to decorate the embroidered burp cloths. Time to give them that extra little something.

There is actually a few different ways to go about doing this. But I'll tell you what I did first.

First I laid out some cute fabric on a flat work surface. I laid my burp cloths down on top of the fabric and used it as a guideline to cut out a piece of fabric the same size as the burp cloth.
I cut the fabric out and laid it right side up on the back of the embroidered burp cloth, so that the embroidery was still facing out. I then pinned on some colored bias tape all around all four edges. I simply sewed on the bias tape so that it was holding both the decorative fabric and the cloth baby diaper together. This serves as a way to hide the back of the embroidery, and also gives the burp cloths a cute decorative look. But there are a other ways to go about this.

More tips to making a personalized cloth baby diapers burp cloth...

Bias tape can be slightly tricky to work with in this manner if you are new to sewing. It's not hard really, but can be a pain in the but when it comes to working with the corners and such. The alternative? Well , first you need to cover up the back of that embroidery. The front side of the burp cloth will look great but without covering the back of the embroidery it's messy looking. I say use applique! All you need is a little bit of fuse-able webbing from the sewing notion aisle. Simply iron a piece to the back of some decorative fabric, cut a cute shape out of the fabric, and then iron it onto the burp cloth over the back of the embroidery. There is more about how to do this in the baby clothes section - Applique tutorial for unique baby clothing, and some free applique patterns as well as instructions too.Top off the entire burp cloth with a cute ruffle or ribbon trim across the ends of the burp cloths. Viola! You've got a cute hand embroidered burp cloth!

baby burp cloth applique cloth baby diapers