Baby showers seem to come along quickly these days. I decided to make a quick receiving blanket and bind it with satin blanket binding. Here is what I did.
I bought 2 pieces of flannel, 1 1/8 yd each. (this worked out to be the perfect size for the binding that comes in a package).
I pinned the two sections together and stitched them together with diagonal lines about 5" apart. This is just to keep the two pieces from shifting.
After they were secured, I washed and dried the piece to get the sizing and new fabric smell out--I thought it would also shrink it a bit.
At this point my piece measured 41" square. When I finished with the binding there was only about a 4" overlap, (so you need to be careful that you don't make it big enough that you have to buy another satin binding strip.)
Make sure that the largest side of the binding is on the back - push your piece inside, close to the fold of the binding and sew with a large zig-zag to within about 4" of the corner.
Fold the corner around the point and make sure the back matches with mitered 45 angles. Pin to help hold it.
Continue sewing around the piece doing each corner the same. Then fold under a bit where the two ends meet and your receiving blanket is done.