How to Make a Bow-Edge Fleece Baby Blanket

You’ll want to make all your fleece Baby Blankets
with this amazing and easy bow-edge.
Yarn, needle and scissors make a
magically sweet border.

We’ve talked about sewing with the Church ladies, like in this post,

and last time I brought home a project to finish for our Christmas Baby Bundles.

Every year we take a few dozen bundles to the County clinic in our local town,

so the nurses can gift them to new mamas who don’t have anything ready for their babies.

The bundles include a handmade burp cloth and matching receiving blanket, little pack of diapers, socks, onesies, and baby cleansers all wrapped in a warm blanket. Sometimes the warm blanket is a tied comforter the Church ladies make, but this year we made fleece blankets to wrap the bundles.

I brought home two of the fleece blankets to finish, so they’d be ready for the Christmas bundles. Because our December meeting is not a regular work day… we pack goody baskets and take them to shut-ins, and Christmas carol for them. So the blankets had to be finished at home.

I’m going to share the tutorial on these blankets, because I know some of you moms are going to want to make these for your littles.

They are just so absolutely cute!

Here’s how to

Make A Bow-Edge Fleece Baby Blanket

I brought two blankets home to sew the bows on the edges, and did them two different ways.

One I did on the sewing machine, and one by hand. I’m not sure which way I like best.

You decide.

What you need:

45″ square of fleece*
sewing scissors, measuring tape or ruler, pencil, cardstock for pattern
sewing machine with matching thread, or baby yarn and large-eye needle* for the hand-sewn version

(Items with asterisks are affiliate links.)

How to make a Bow-Edge Fleece Baby Blanket

The first four steps are for either method of sewing the fringe.

Make a pattern for cutting the fringe: you need a 3″ x 3″ square of cardstock.
Place the fringe pattern on a corner of the blanket, and cut a 3″ square out of the corner.
Do this to all 4 corners.
Place your fringe pattern along the edge to guide your 3″ wide by 3″ deep fringes, all the way around.

Sewing Machine sewn bow-edges

Fold a fringe into 1/4″ accordion pleats.
Place under straight sewing foot.
Sew back and forth across the center of the “bow” making sure the thread is well fixed on the ends so it won’t ravel.
Cut the threads and move to the next bow.
Make all fringes into bows.

Hand Sewn bow-edges

Cut a 2 foot length of yarn and thread it through the large needle.
Tie a knot at one end and cut the extra yarn off.
Stick the needle into the center of a fringe, about 3/4″ from the edge, from the bottom up.
Make 3 or 4 large stitches to the imaginary line along the end of the fringe cuts. Have the needle come out on top of the blanket.
Pull the stitches tight. Fold the end so that it covers the knot on the yarn.
Pulling the stitches tight will already show you the form of a bow. Now wrap the yarn around the center of the bow, stick the needle through the blanket from bottom to top, then wrap again. Pull both wraps as tight as you can.
On top of the blanket, where the thread goes through the fleece, make a French knot. Here’s how: wrap the yarn around the needle two times, then stick the needle through the blanket to the bottom side and pull tight. Make another French knot on the bottom, and end with the yarn on the top of the blanket. Now weave the end of the yarn through beneath the top French knot and in the bow, then cut.
Do this to all the fringe cuts, and…
Stand back and admire the almost magical finish you get with this easy tying method!