Baby Clothes!!!

A friend of mine is having a baby, and I was so thrilled to have an excuse to use some of the little baby patterns in my Ottobre magazine. It is the 6/2013 issue: 

that I bought to make the girls' Easter coats. When I saw these patterns for the wrap onesie and big elastic-waist easy-going pants I started getting the baby bug myself, so it was a relief when I had a friend to sew for! 

She is having a little boy and lives in Colorado, so I upcycled an old T-shirt advertising a great CO ski resort to make one of the shirts, and used fabric from the same shirt for one of the pairs of pants. 

It was fun to play with the pattern pieces and the placement of the logos for the onesie. I happened to have just enough of a light blue thread that matched the decal to top stitch all of my seams (I actually put it in the bobbin and just used it to finish all of my seams instead of going back and topstitching as a separate step). 

The  fabric of the green striped top (and matching cuffs on the pants) is an old baby blanket. The white trim on this one was cut as bias strips from an old tshirt. I also used this old shirt to cut small rectangular scraps to make tags for all the pieces. They don't flap at all like tags (we don't want to be tickling that little baby neck), I guess it is more appropriate to call them labels. It's just a rectangle that is sewn into each item with the guess-tamite size written in with fabric marker. (Ottobre sizes their clothes in cm which is a little confusing, especially when you don't have the little model in front of you to measure. I used the smallest size of the pattern for one set and called it 0-3 m, then made a couple sizes up and called it 6-9m - it will be interesting to hear when these clothes actually fit her baby)

             These patterns just seemed so practical for a little baby. I love how the onesie doesn't go over the head at all; the baby can just be lain down inside the onesie and then it is wrapped around him and snapped.

           I had never installed snaps onto a garment before. The key elements seem to be making sure there are an adequate number of layers of fabric (intalling them on the binding worked fine; on places where I put them in on a single layer of fabric the instructions had me add an additional layer by ironing on a circle slightly larger than the snap with interfacing, this worked well) and having a spool to place over the snap while hammering it into place. I realized a little too late that I should be placing fabric between the snaps and other layers of the shirt while hammering away; some of the white coating of the snaps rubbed onto the fabric in little white circles you can see in some of these pictures. They are all on the interior of the shirt though, and I'm sure they will wash out easily.

            The pants look so comfortable and easy to put on as well. Nice and baggy and loose to hopefully cover a cloth diaper with no trouble. I was happy to add the tags to the pants as well because although there is a distinct front and back side to them, it can be difficult to tell which is which when looking at them quickly. There is a navy pair of three-quarter length pants (good for a summer baby) made from an old tshirt and utilizing the existing hem as the cuff hem. The other pair are made from the same fabric as the shirts as mentioned, and have a great stretchy cuff on the bottom that add to the cuteness factor and have a lot of potential for creating a fun little layette of baby clothes.

            I have enjoyed sewing without patterns quite a bit in the past, but I don't think I would have even attempted this project with one. No one wants to fight with a little newborn babe trying to put on wonky sized clothes. Hopefully they will fit the little guy like a cute and comfy broken in cotton glove!