Naptime Sewing

One of my friends from work is expecting a baby girl in November, so I wanted to make her something special for her shower next week.

But first, I want to let you in on a little secret. I am rather uncreative. Crafty? Yes. Able to replicate ideas? Yes. But creative? Not so much. My big secret is Etsy. I look for something I want to buy, and then shamelessly copy it. I don't know if that makes me a bad person for basically stealing someone else's designs, but I don't say the idea as mine, just the final product. And I do usually put my own spin on things. Case in point: my nursery mobile.

Original:

My copy:

Sure there are differences, but there is no denying where I got my idea from. I went so far as to trace the shape of her birds to make my own.

So with this in mind, and in the interest of full disclosure, I copied this onesie from Etsy shop CutSewRepeat. And yes, I traced the outline of the bird again. (I'm terrible at freehanding things.)

And here is my final product, adding in a cute(and super easy) matching skirt and a headband. All little baby girls need matching headbands afterall.

I made the appliqued onesie using fusible webbing found near the iron hem tape and then just stitch around the outside to permanently secure. I first tried out this technique after making Ellie's pumpkin patch outfit. After I had my pattern traced out, it took about 20 minutes to finish. I tried my hand at a more complicated owl pattern too (which you may have noticed Ellie sporting in yesterday's post. I actually made the owl first, but didn't love how it turned out, so I went to Plan B(ird).

The skirt I made is so easy it's ridiculous.
1. Make a rectangle of fabric 2x your kiddo's waist measurement and as wide as you want the skirt to be long.
2. Sew it into a circle.
3. Hem the bottom.
4. Make a pocket for elastic.
5. Put in the elastic.
6. Sew shut.
7. Dance party.

I decided to make the waistband a different color, so add that in if you want. Time for skirt: 30 minutes. My hint for time savings: don't cut fabric, rip it. If you need a straight line, it is much faster and more accurate to cut a small snip and then rip it the rest of the way. Changed my life when I learned that trick and the sound is very therapeutic when the baby has be crying all day.

If you want a more in-depth tutorial than my 7 pictureless steps about, check out Made.

My final project for the baby girl was a matching headband. I am proud to say that I came up with this one all on my own. I made a fabric flower (a la here) and a felt flower (a la here) and hot glued them together. The elastic is a piece of knit elastic with a strip of unfinished fabric sewed on using a zig zag stitch while the elastic was stretch out. Put it all together and voila! Time for headband: 15 minutes.

Wanna see the whole outfit again?

So adding it all up, that is just over an hour to make an entire outfit. Ellie's naps are usually about 1.5 hours, so just enough time left over to clean up and grab a snack. Perfect!