Baby Season - Decorated Onesie Tutorial

It is baby season around here! My sister has three colleagues who are expecting babies in the next month, and I know a few people also waiting for an impending arrival! What better way to welcome them but with a cute handmade gift!

All you need is your scrap stash and a plain onesie (and of course your sewing machine).

Go through your stash and find a fabric that you want to use. If it's plain or patterned, you can turn it into some ruffles or yo-yos to embellish the onsie, or if it has a cute print, you can use the print as the feature, like I have with the owl onesie above.

I had some Zoology in Sea from the Cute Critters Collection by Michael Miller in my stash, so I chose that.

 I decided to make the hippo the feature, so I cut a small piece of adhesive bonding paper (I use vliesofix, but there are many types you can use) according to the size of the piece I fabric I wanted, then ironed it to the wrong side of the fabric.

I then used my pinking shears to cut the exact piece I wanted for my applique. You don't have to use pinking shears, but I like the neat and decorative look it gives the edges.

Once I had my piece nicely trimmed to size, I peeled off the backing paper and positioned it onto my onesie.

 

Once the fabric was in the desired position, I firmly ironed it into place. 

The next step is to stitch your applique. For this one, I chose a complementary teal thread that looked great against the grey background and matched the hippo, and I used a straight stitch. You can use any stitch or thread you like, zig zag is also a great choice.

  Once you have sewn neatly around the applique, pull your threads through to the wrong side, tie off and trim and you are done! A quick and cute addition that will make your baby gift unique.

For this onesie, there was also a frog on the scrap that I couldn't resist, so I added it to the back. Here is the finished product - the stitching doesn't show up in the photo, but it looks great!

Inspired by the Happy Dress, here is another one I did using some yellow polka dot scraps:

Hope this inspires you to use up those scraps and make some cute masterpieces! I would love to see yours - please share a picture over at my Flickr Group!

Just finally... we are celebrating Fathers' Day in Australia today.

Trev - thanks for being a wonderful husband and father - you are the best and we LOVE you!!