Sleepers quilt
 

I was asked to make a quilt from baby sleepers. Has anyone made one before? I am wondering if the sleepers need a fusible interfacing. Would it be difficult to make? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I would think the fabric would be so thin that it would not last. The fusible interfacing idea sounds like a good solution.

I would run away from the idea as fast as I could.

An exception might be if it was to be for a memory quilt for a child that died.

I'm curious. Why would you say that? I'm not very experienced at quilting, so would like to know why I might not want to do that.

If I understand what baby sleepers are, they are thin, t-shirt type material. They are obviously small with lots of zippers, snaps or such which could make design difficult..... Ok, I get it - kinda, sorta.

But, they are knit, not going to ravel, could be interfaced for stability and are kind of cute.

bkay

Lol, Bear!

The only way I would do sleepers would be to applique the fronts of them onto cotton quilting fabric. And as they are knit, yes you do need a fusible backing such as you use for T shirt quilts. French Fuse or another tricot interfacing is what I use.

If you are up for the project, go for it!

That's the only way I can envision using them - unless one cut them apart - and then what would be the point of using them?

If I remember sleepers correctly, they were horrible to fold and always looked like a wad - worse than fitted sheets that had elastic all the way around - they were knit - had snaps - and the really old ones had a drawstring on the bottom.

I would look at them very carefully before committing to trying to use them. They might be very worn - or they might be almost new -

Some of the knits were extremely stretchy -

Knits are not created equally. There are some knits I would consider using "as is" in a quilting project - they have almost no stretch. One needs to consider fiber content, stretchiness, density/thickness of the fabric - all sorts of factors.

Several years ago at The Minnesota Quilt Show - someone had appliquéd what looked like old, faded, rumpled nightgowns to a quilt. The whole thing looked like an unmade made to me. Whatever the point of it was, I think I missed it.

I think it is possible to do something "cute" with sleepers - the idea of working with them just does not appeal to me - at all.

Sleepers are going to make huge blocks! I've seen the ones using smaller pieces of clothing, like little dresses, but nothing as big as a sleeper. It sounds like a real challenge working with the fasteners and the feet. I worked with one sleeper for my grandson. Of course, it was a favorite but the puppy chewed on it and ruined it. That sleeper went into 3 projects, using the applique on the sleeper. One of the biggest pieces went into a bib but the smallest became a book on the shelf of one of those bookshelf wall hangings. Not much left of the sleeper but the memories and I hate throwing the last of it away!

Same idea as a T-Shirt quilt. If you are a beginning quilter, this can be a challenge. It is stretchy, so you need to deal with that. With a T-shirt, you put fusible behind the piece you want, fuse and then cut it out. Because this is a smaller item and is irregular in shape, it might be an easier option to attach it to a background piece, stitch it down (think applique) and then maybe do some decorative echo stitching on the background. Once you have enough blocks made, I would sash them in a coordinating color and use that same color in a border. This would pull them all together and make the sleepers be the stars. Also, doing it as one block at a time is a lot easier on a beginner, you get to feel a sense of accomplishment with each completed block!

Not a quilt, but these are fun:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/142989...68363/?lp=true