Guidelines for Cuddle Blankets:
For these cuddle blankets you will be choosing your strips and arranging them.
Once you’ve chosen your arrangement you’re ready to sew them together. Shannon Fabrics’ website has a lot of great tutorials and suggestions about the best way to work with these wonderful substrates.
Always use a walking foot when putting your strips together or just working with Cuddle in general.
Pin Pin Pin! You can even hand baste these strips together with a long basting stitch.
Cuddle fabrics are usually 60 inches wide, but there may be times when some are wider than others. Don’t try and stretch the fabric to get it to fit. Using caution when laying them flat, measure them before sewing them together. That way you will know if you have stretched it during the pinning, basting or sewing process. You may want to mark the number of inches on the strip itself or keep a note of how long they are at the beginning of the process.
After you have sewn them together in the order you wish them to be, you can then trim them to match the shortest one. Lay the unit on the cutting table nice and flat when you trim, using a rotary ruler and mat, and making certain it is straight.
If you have added cotton strips or double gauze strips, it will give it some stability in the process. It helps to put those strips on the ends.
When quilting, the same applies—Pin Pin Pin! Make sure that you have a safety pin in every 2 inches. Or, you can hand baste the layers together.
You can also use the option of no batting, and just a backing.
To apply the backing, you lay the backing wrong side up with the pieced top unit on top, right side up. Cut the backing to be about 1 ½” larger than the pieced top. You can pull the backing up over the edges of the top unit and pin. Then using you walking foot and a longer stitch length, sew the backing to the front about 1/8-1/4” away from the raw edge. You can roll it under so that there is no raw edge if desired. However, the cuddle will not ravel.
