Soft ‘n Snuggly Sensory Baby Quilt Tutorial

Turn your favorite leftover minky, chenille, cotton, and dimple fabrics into a sweet and snuggly baby quilt using our free Sensory Baby Quilt Sewing Pattern & Tutorial.

sensory strip baby quilt DIY tutorial

One of my favorite baby quilts to make is my Soft N Snuggly Sensory Baby Quilt.ย  It pieces together quickly and is a great way to use up some of your scraps. All of those fun textures and colors appeal to babies and children.

A few years ago, a friend was expecting a new baby girl, and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make another sensory baby quilt.

I’ve made a few in the past (I’ve been making these quilts for over 10 years now), and I love making them because they are so simple. Since there are no points to match, they are great for beginning quilters or someone looking for a fast finish for a gift.

I’ve shared these sensory baby quilts with you guys a few times but have not written a FULL tutorial to make one. Today, I thought I’d show you how I make a simple strip sensory baby quilt.

What is a Sensory Baby Quilt?

sensory strip baby quilt

About the Fabrics in the Sensory Quilt

The quilt is designed to have many different textures for a baby to touch. ย There is flannel, minky, chenille, and cotton.ย  ย 

It’s a GREAT way to use up a bunch of fabric scraps. I always end up with many extra strips of minke fabric, which is expensive. I don’t want to throw it out so these strip baby quilts are a great way to use it up.

To make my quilts, I cut each fabric into strips 4″ – 8″ wide and pieced them together randomly. I added a satin blanket binding around the edges to finish it. Satin binding is not my favorite since I have difficulty laying it flat, but I think its texture to the quilt makes it worth it.

sensory strip baby quilt on white table

After a good washing, the blanket comes out soft and super textured.

One thing to note is that since each of these fabrics shrinks at a different percentage, the quilt will not be 100% perfect, but that’s not the point of a quilt like this, if you ask me. Because of this, however, you may want to prewash your fabrics.

sensory strip baby quilt hanging on fence outside.
sensory strip baby quilt

Soft โ€˜n Snuggly Sensory Baby Quilt Sewing Tutorial

Melissa Mortenson
Turn your favorite leftover minky, chenille, cotton, and dimple fabrics into a sweet and snuggly baby quilt using our free Sensory Baby Quilt Sewing Pattern & Tutorial.
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Prep Time 1 hour
Active Time 4 hours
Total Time 5 hours

supplies

  • A variety of fabrics in a variety of textures. Do not use a jersey knit or anything super heavy. I recommend using quilting cotton chenille, flannel, minke, and light wale corduroy.
  • 1 1/2 Yards Fabric for the Back I recommend Chenille, Cuddle, or Minky
  • 1 1/2 Yards Cotton Batting
  • 1 Package of Satin Blanket Binding or 1/2 yard of fabric to cut for binding strips

Instructions
 

Step One: Gather Your Fabrics

  • TIP: This project is GREAT for leftover scrap fabrics. I chose the size of my quilt based on my tiniest fabric scrap.
  • Start by gathering coordinated fabrics and cutting them into random sizes. Youโ€™ll want a variety of quilting cotton, flannel, minke, corduroy, and even lightweight denim.
  • If you think any fabrics may bleed or shrink significantly, I recommend pre-washing them.
  • If you are using chenille, I recommend you pre-wash it. Itโ€™s a mess after itโ€™s washed, and you donโ€™t want it to get on your other fabrics.
    sensory strip baby quilt

Step Two: Cut Your Fabric Strips

  • For the red and green quilt pictured above, my smallest piece of fabric was 35โ€ณ long, so I cut all of the fabrics to 35โ€ณ with widths varying from 3โ€ณ โ€“ 10โ€ณ.
  • I didnโ€™t plan it out or think about it; I just started chopping up the fabric. You do not have to make your pieces 35โ€ณ long.
    If you have 42โ€ณ of fabric, you can use that. I didnโ€™t want to use more than one fabric width for the back of the quilt, so I made sure my quilt was narrower than the standard 42โ€ณ fabric width.

Assembly:

  • Start by sewing the strips together. As you do this, ensure the minky is not the top or bottom strip, as it stretches and might make quilting a bit more complicated.
  • I like to โ€œlock inโ€ my strips with flannel or corduroy on the top and bottom. Youโ€™ll notice in my pink and blue quilt that I have a minke on one of the ends.
    It made it harder to make that one. I prefer to put a flannel or corduroy on the ends instead. Also, ensure that no two โ€œlikeโ€ fabrics are next to each other.
    sensory strip baby quilt
  • You might not be able to tell from the photo, but I cut the 2 corduroy fabrics (the red and turquoise) opposite ways so that the wale of the corduroy was different on each one. (This was just to add more visual texture.)
  • After you have the quilt the size youโ€™d like, stop sewing on extra strips. My quilt ended up being about 35โ€ณ wide by 50โ€ณ tall, which is a good size for a baby quilt.
  • An โ€œidealโ€ size would be about 40โ€ณ x 50โ€ณ, but as I said, I was working with what I had; my shortest strip was 35โ€ณ long.

To Finish the Quilt:

  • Make a quilt sandwich with the quilt top, cotton batting, and flannel (the process is similar to this table runner if you need help).
    sensory strip baby quilt
  • Quilt it simply using the stitch-in-the-ditch method. You can also add extra lines of straight stitching to sections of the quilt as youโ€™d like. However, know that many fabrics will stretch as you quilt them. So, you might want to keep the machine quilting to a minimum.
  • Bind the quilt using a satin blanket you can purchase at the store. There is an excellent tutorial for attaching a Satin Blanking binding here: https://klee2strings.blogspot.com/2013/11/tutorial-satin-binding-on-baby-blanket.html
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