Sunday, May 1, 2011

Gifts: Baby Edition

I know *SO* many people having babies this year....wait - actually, I know people having babies every year, guess I'm just that age where everyone is married and having babies!  At any rate, that means that I have a lot of baby related projects, both for my own friends and for friends of friends.

I love it.

Since my own baby is now a full-sentence speaking, opinion-having, giant toddler, it helps me feed my baby fever (feed a fever, starve a cold, right? RIGHT?) AND my creativity at the same time.

Win/win.

One of the most popular requests these days are for burp cloths.  Burp cloths are actually one of my favorite gifts because a) you never have enough of them and b) they are so cute and easy to make truly customized.  You know, kind of like these:


A friend asked for some burp cloths for her niece who was having a little girl.  The family is both Clemson and Tennessee fans, so I thought this beautiful bright orange cotton gingham would be perfect to represent both schools.


And of course, I just wanted to add the orange ribbon to girly it up even further.

It seems that burp cloths to represent one's school are really the most popular choice, so when another friend contacted me about some burp cloths to represent our alma mater, The University of Alabama, I was happy to whip out my houndstooth cloth and get to work.






These two sets of two burp cloths featured both a houndstooth fabric with crimson monogram and a crimson flannel fabric with a white university-like "A" and "Roll Tide" on them.

And as somewhat of an aside:  I am pretty emotionally ripped over the destruction of so many people's lives due to the giant tornado that struck Tuscaloosa - and many other parts of Alabama - on Wednesday.  I have a plan to use my talents the best I know how to create a product I hope people will buy so that I can donate the proceeds to the recovery efforts.  There will be more on that in a future post, and I hope that will be something I can get working on before the end of the week.

Finally is a gift I made for a friend of mine.  Sara and I have been friends since we were in high school, and though I am two years older than she is, she has experienced all the big life events before me, so I have always depended on her lots of advice.  She is also quite an accomplished seamstress, so I always feel a little silly sewing things for her.  But, I figure that like myself, she's always so busy sewing for others that she hardly has time to do things she'd like to have for herself.  Since she is getting ready to have her FOURTH baby, I thought it might be time for a new little diaper bag.


Since she is not opposed to adding further to her family, I thought the best kind of bag would be a gender neutral color and using their last name as a monogram instead of waiting to find out the baby's name.  When I found this sweet, yellow, cotton duck toile and gingham...well, it was singing baby bag to me.  Sure, it's not the trendiest but I love a classic.  And nothing is more classic than Gingham and Toile when you're talking baby.



I used Simplicity "It's So Easy" pattern 2830, but revised it as I felt to better fit the needs of a diaper bag.  The original pattern is not lined, and it has a zippered top.  I just can't see not lining a bag planned for heavy use, and a zipper to me would be useless.  So I added a tab with a magnetic closure.  If I make another one, I would definitely add a fleece lining as well to lend some stability to the bag.  The bag has six pockets all around, so though I considered adding an inner pocket, I thought that might be pocket overkill.


And of course, I didn't want to just send the bag, so I found some of the CUTEST little boy "baby legs" at Target and had to slip them in the very front pocket.


I hope she can find a use for it - I thought at the very least it would be easy to find the bag after Sunday school or at the gym because it has her name on it. :-)

What is your favorite baby gift to give?  What would you like to see me tackle?  I've done onesies and dresses and bags and burp cloths, and as always, if you would like to have me create something for you or one of your friends or family members, please contact me at withpinandink@gmail.com for prices!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sleep sacks! Those are the BEST. And, you need at least three of 'em per baby.