Baby Shower Gifts

My tearful scene at Amanda's baby shower was not the only gift I gave to her.

No, Linda and I went in on a gift where Linda bought the onesies and I embellished them. Since I had approximately $2.50 in my bank account at the time, the arrangement worked out nicely for me. Using this tutorial from Prudent Baby, I made two onesie dresses. (Incidentally for those of you who have or might endeavor to make these, despite being advertised as a '10 minute dress', there's no such thing as a 10 minute sewing project for me. Especially a dress. Even if it is a really simple dress like these. So you might want to set aside a few more minutes than 10 to make one of these.)

I love this fabric and have just been sitting on it since I got it at Mary Jo's a couple of months ago. Oh, that I had expendable income! I would make at least a monthly pilgrimage to Mary Jo's and stock up. And I would spend a lot more time buying things at Fabricworm instead of merely coveting. I cut one of the flowers, ironed some interfacing on and stitched around it 3 times to applique it to the onesie.

See! It's still a onesie!

They way you attach the skirt to the dress encases all the raw edges so that there are no scratchy parts for baby, and no ugly threads to show! (Although I did find this part a bit tricky since you can't really see what you are doing, and thus can't arrange or manage your gathers as you sew.)

Another one with ric rac and some fabric rosettes.

Excuse the hot glue spots- it's really hard to be careful with the hot glue when you're working with such tiny rosettes!

I keep old t-shirts to use for various projects. 'Old' should read as 'used and discarded but clean and in good shape.' For the floral cluster above, you just haphazardly cut circular shapes, layering them on top of each other. I did stacks of 3 in diminishing sizes. When you sew them on, you just kind of scrunch them together and again, haphazardly sew them to the shirt. As you stitch through the middle of the circles and pull, it natrually pulls them together into the desired shape. Cluster them close together. Seriously easy. And these look even cuter with washing- the edges of the knit fray ever so slightly and look better with time!

Using the same shirt I just made three ruffles and sewed them on! That one might have taken close to 10 minutes, but it was still more than that, I guarantee. I think I am slow, in more ways than one.

Four gifts- unique, pretty and fun!

(I threw in the public display of emotion as a bonus for the new mom.)