Monday, August 22, 2011

Beth's Gifts and a Tutorial

My friend Tiffany and I threw a baby shower for another friend of ours. Beth is having a baby girl at the end of this month and I am so excited. She has a son Lorelai's age and I'm always excited for mother to get their first girl. Setting up and making treats for this shower were a BLAST but that is a post for another day. Today I want to share with you the gifts I made as well as tack on a little tutorial!

I mentioned Beth has a son who is three. That is a lot of time to be alone with mommy and now a little miss is coming to steal his spotlight. I thought to help ease his pain it would be really fun if he and baby sis had some matching super hero clothes. I used this tutorial to make him some superman shorts...


and I thought it would be so cute to make baby girl a little superman onsie dress. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the super onsie dress (I'm hoping Beth will send me a pic of the two kiddos in their matching digs) but to appease everyone... Here is the tutorial!



Onsie dresses are easily my favorite my favorite gift to give but so hard to find in stores. I can not understand why, because they are just the perfect outfit! All one piece, no keeping track of those matching diaper covers. Simple and adorable. Lets begin!
For these onsies, size 3mos, I bought half a yard of awesome fabric each.
For each dress you will need

  • 1 onsie
  • 1/2 yd of fabric
  • matching thread
  • elastic thread

Before cutting anything, measure from the waist to the snaps and add one inch. For me it equaled 8". Now go ahead and slice those onsies in half.

For this skirt I made two layers. Lay your half yard out and cut long ways. The bottom layer of the skirt is 8"X44" and then the top layer is 7"X44". This leaves you with a little fabric left over which is perfect for adding an embellishment to the finished onsie or matching hair piece.

Fold the top layer in half right sides together and sew a 3/8" seam.

Do the same for the bottom layer.

Press up the the bottom of each layer a half inch and hem.

Then slip your bottom layer into the top layer, with the right side of the bottom layer facing the back side of the top.

Next you are going to switch your bobbin for one with elastic thread. Make sure your thread is wound very loose or your skirt wont turn out.

Now, sewing through both layers sew a line a 1/4" away from your edge and then a second line a 1/4" below that. The fabric should have scrunched up a bit but to obtain optimum schrunch hit those seams with some steam! It is very fun to watch. I don't know the chemistry behind that but it works!
When I tested out my methods I only needed to lines to achieve the necessary scrunch but for this project I found my fabric was a little stiffer and I had two add two more lines.
I like to tie my ends of elastic thread to make them more secure.

This how the skirt looked before the steam.

Pick up the bottom of your onsie and slip it into your perfectly scrunched skirt. The outside of your onsie should be against the inside of the skirt. Pin all the way around.

Once it is all pinned up grab the top of the onsie. With it still right side against the skirt pin the edge to the edge of the skirt. Pin through the bottom of the onsie as well. Make sure the side seams of the top of the onsie and the bottom of the onsie are lined up. When you have pinned half way around the top put all of the skirt in your hand just like in the picture above.

Pull the the free side of the onsie down, and then up the other side of the skirt, turning it inside out. Pin the rest of the way around.

Its time to sew it all together. You want to find ^this^ stitch on your machine. This zig zag will allow the finished garment to still stretch. Sew all the way around through all thicknesses.

Pull the top up and you are left with this awesome finished onsie dress! I hope you enjoy and if you give it a try please send me pictures.



Linked up to : Ladybird Ln's Weekend show of party

1 comment:

  1. that onsie dress turned out to be all sorts of cuteness. i love the polkadot fabric. p.s. blogger is being a hater. this is emily.

    ReplyDelete