what viv did: Make a burp cloth: quick and easy

This burp cloth took me maybe 20 minutes to put together, if that. It's so simple and quick and much cuter than the cloth diaper burp rags.

The players:

Some fabric scraps. Here I used some cotton fabric leftovers and some minkee leftovers. Any absorbent fabric like terrycloth, minkee or chenille would work great on one side. I cut my pieces 8"x15", but you can adjust to suit your needs.

To make life easier on me and because I hate cutting one stretchy and one non-stretch fabric the same exact height & width, I start by cutting out my cotton, non-stretch fabric into the desired measurement.

Then I place it on my minkee with right-sides together (this is important for a future step and will make your life easier).

Next, I pin together the four corners. Again, this is just a little trick I've learned to make life easier on me when working with fabrics that are stretch and non-stretch together.

Now pin all the way around.

Cut your minkee the same size as your cotton fabric - and leave the pins in!

Now go ahead and sew around the edges. I went with about a 5/8" seam allowance. Leave an opening several inches long on one side.

Trim your edges. I like to live dangerously and trim mine pretty short. Maybe too short, but it hasn't come back to bite me...yet.

I also snip off my corners.

Now turn it inside out from the opening you left.

It'll look a little crazy. Not really burp rag-ish yet.

Push out your corners. I use my knife-sharpener. Hey, be inventive! I'm sure they make a tool for this but I say knife sharpeners are just fine. Just use something long enough with a dull end so you don't poke a hole through the corners. Then if you're still not happy with them, you can kind of wiggle out the points with your fingers on the outside of the material.

Then pin your opening shut.

And iron it all out.

Now topstitch. You can do something fun or just be boring like me and do a quick straight stitch. Make sure you get pretty close to your edges. This will close up your opening and make it look pretty. We like pretty.

Ooh, here's a tip my mom taught me and I will never backstitch on a visible edge again.

When you get to the end of your rectangle and you would normally backstitch - don't. Just go ahead and stop yourself but leave your threads long. Grab a piece of that long thread (use the side that won't show, like the INSIDE of a hem of a pair of pants or in this case, on the minkee side - I'm showing you on this side only because you wouldn't be able to see what I was talking about if I were showing you how to do this on the minkee side). Now pull it backwards until you see the loop of the thread on the underside - the bobbin thread.

Grab your thread-ripper/hem-ripper thingy (there's got to be a technical name for that, right? Someone fill me in...) and pull the bobbin thread through gently to the other side. I really mean GENTLY, because you don't want to break the thread. Then you'll have both pieces of your thread on one side.

Now tie those two pieces of thread twice and snip off the remaining thread as short as you can. You probably see that I have four pieces of thread here. That's because I didn't backstitch in the beginning either. You might be able to get away with not backstitching by overlapping the end of your thread with the beginning, but I don't trust that so I use this method on the beginning and end.