Sewing for Babies - Part 2

My previous post was about sewing for baby Lewis, and today I'm sharing my latest baby girl gift. If you have joined me on my Facebook page or you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen this cute outfit already - I am so pleased with it I had to show it off!

My lovely friend Amy recently had a gorgeous baby girl, and this is the outfit I made for little Pippa.

This is the first ruffle nappy cover I've made and I'm addicted...friends who are future mothers of baby girls, watch out! You will probably get one of these!

The pattern I used is the Tie Dye Diva Fancy Ruffle Diaper Cover. Great pattern, I highly recommend it and I have since bought a couple more Tue Dye Diva patterns. I particularly like the technique of using bias binding to create the leg casings for the elastic - much easier and less fiddly than creating casings from the fabric.

This cute owl fabric is a quilting cotton I picked up at Spotlight. The ruffles are made from a Denyse Schmidt pink polka dot and a pale pink solid.

I haven't used the rolled hem function on my overlocker in ages so I was a bit nervous, but I had my manual handy and it was a breeze. I've had my overlocker for almost a year now and it still makes me nervous sometimes!

With summer upon us and another 35C+ weekend coming up, I think I'll be whipping up a few of these for Lucy. I've just bought a whole bunch of new fabric so I'll be sewing up a storm in the next couple of weeks, mainly for my girls for Christmas.

What are you sewing for Christmas? More creative inspiration here today.

How to Make Ruffles using your Serger - Tutorial

...or overlocker. Whatever you would like to call it. In Australia we call sergers 'overlockers' so that is what I will call it for the rest of the post.

My overlocker is a very recent addition - my husband bought it for me as a surprise for my birthday (nice one huh?) When I got it, I was totally intimidated, and I think lots of us feel that way about overlockers. They are quite different beasts than our sewing machines. Just threading it for the first time is SCARY! Lucky for me, the store where Trev bought mine offered a free lesson as part of the purchase. If you can get a lesson or two thrown in if you are thinking of buying one, I would recommend it!

I'm not a 'read the manual' kind of girl - I am a visual learner - I learn by seeing, then doing. During my lesson, the lady at the store showed me how to make ruffles (or gather fabric) using the overlocker. It was so quick and easy I nearly fell off the chair. So here it is!

Set your differential feed to 2.2.

Change the tension of your two needles to 8. Leave the loop tensions as they are.

Feed your fabric through the machine. Guide it gently but firmly as it moves through.

Chain off. That's it.

How easy is that?! You can gently pull the fabric to adjust the ruffles, but I find that this method gives quite an even gather along your fabric. Use this method to make something totally gorgeous like this skirt I made for Lucy!

Don't forget to re-adjust your overlocker settings before your next project. Happy overlocking!

Do you love your overlocker? Or are you a bit scared of it?