making a baby clothes quilt

[llwr]

I don't have much experience with knits, which is what most of the baby clothes are made from.  Should I stabilize them somehow?   A water soluble stabilizer or starch?  Then I was going to sew them onto a squares of muslin; I think that will help with stretching issues as well.  I'm planning on using a regular all-purpose needle, since I'll be using both knits and wovens. 

I'm not sure yet what I'll use as backing.  I'm thinking about something soft like minkee.  Would that be really hard to quilt with?  Would flannel or a quilting cotton type be better?

Thanks!

[mollipop]

I do memory quilts with clothing and such. The best backing I have found so far to use is woven fusible interfacing. I use it on every non-woven fabric that is going into the quilt-  sports jerseys, knits, etc. You won't need to attach the interfacing and then attach it to muslin. The woven interfacing is enough and will keep your fabrics from stretching as you sew.

Make sure you use a quiliting foot when using minky as the backing. Minky can create quite a bit of "drag" when the feed dogs move them through the machine.

HTH.

[katelove]

Not sure about the OP but I found it very useful. Thank you. I was washing my LOs baby clothes for our new baby today and thinking I would love to make quilts for them but it is *all* light knit fabric and I had no idea how it was going to work.

[doularebekah]

Thanks for this! I'm hoping to make a quilt out of the t-shirts that belonged to my aunt and uncle's little girl who passed away a month ago and was wondering about exactly this!

[christophersmom]

I want to make a quilt for DS out of all his sports team shirts. Still can't picture this, but good starting point. I am decent at sewing if I have a picture tutorial and an idea. I have no creativity of my own
 

[brittneyvand]

If you are not sure what to use to stabilize, ask at the fabric store. That is what I did. I used a fusible interfacing and it worked great. If you don't use something like that your fabric can stretch in unwanted ways.