Ruffled Onesie

One Wednesday I showed you all of the cute little things I made for my friend Gen who just had a brand new baby girl.  One of those things was a cute embellished onesie.  It's super easy and the perfect project for any new moms out there who are new to sewing.

 

Here's what you need:

Materials:
-onesie
-cotton fabric
-thread, scissors, pins, measuring tape
-optional: wooly nylon thread and serger

Steps:
1) Measure across the bum part of the onesie and double that measurement.  Mine was 8", so I'm going to cut my cotton fabric strips 16".

2) Cut 1" wide strips from your cotton whatever length you calculated above.  Make as many as you want, I went with 3 but you could go for more if you like.

3) Finish all edges of your strips, including the short sides.  I did a rolled hem on my serger.  If you don't have a serger, you can either zigzag or do a very narrow regular hem.  (If you choose the narrow hem method you may want to add another 1/2" to the width of your strips as your hem will take more away than the rolled hem will.)

4) Sew a long basting stitch right down the centre of each of your strips.

5) Gently pull the bobbin thread to gather or ruffle your strip of fabric.  Gather only to fit across your onesie (on mine, 8").  If you pull too much, just pull the fabric back along the thread to make it fit.  Try to make sure your gathers are somewhat even.

6) For easy placement I started with the bottom ruffle, matching it up with the edge of the leg hole.  Pin in place down the centre of your ruffle.  Add the next two layers above, simply laying each ruffle edge to edge with the one below it.

7) Go back to a regular sewing stitch and stitch right down the centre, on top of your basting threads.  Try to keep the edges of your ruffle out of the way.

8) When you're all done and happy with it you can pull out your basting threads.  Make sure not to leave anything hanging, stray threads can be very dangerous for a baby as they can wrap around their tiny fingers and cut off circulation.  Always make super duper sure you've cut everything down.

And that is it!  I had some extra ruffle left so I made it into a little flower and handstitched it onto the front just so that not all the action is in the back.

I made this as an extra 'add-in' gift but it seemed to steal the show actually.

If you missed it and want to see what else was in the handmade gift pack just go here to check it all out!

This project was featured here: