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| As modelled by my kitchen chair |
I went to buy baby clothes for Pickle the other day.
I found it totally overwhelming.
Even outside the pink/blue themes there was lots of choice and despite my careful research, once in the store I had no idea about quality or price or anything. I came home with just a couple of onesies and a big headache.
I complained to Mr Duncan that I really just needed to inherit a big bag of baby stuff so I didn't need to make so many decisions.
Lo and behold, I was visiting one of my few Melbourne friends the other day and she mentioned she'd recently been through the wardrobes of both her little ones' and I should go up to the spare room and feel free to help myself to anything I wanted.
I love it when you put something out to the universe and it answers like that.
I found it totally overwhelming.
Even outside the pink/blue themes there was lots of choice and despite my careful research, once in the store I had no idea about quality or price or anything. I came home with just a couple of onesies and a big headache.
I complained to Mr Duncan that I really just needed to inherit a big bag of baby stuff so I didn't need to make so many decisions.
Lo and behold, I was visiting one of my few Melbourne friends the other day and she mentioned she'd recently been through the wardrobes of both her little ones' and I should go up to the spare room and feel free to help myself to anything I wanted.
I love it when you put something out to the universe and it answers like that.
I went home with a bag full of gender neutral stuff in newborn and 000 sizes along with a few pieces of 00 and 0 stuff for the future.
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| Newborn clothes ready to go |
The next day I came across some high quality Egyptian cotton towels on sale and I thought I'd make a hooded towel for my friend's two year old as a thank you for the baby clothes.
I first came across these cute hooded towels when I was pregnant with Poppy and working from home. I had lots of time to surf the internet for baby things to sew while waiting for people to join conference calls. I couldn't imagine making one for when Pickle is born, but they seem perfect for a toddler to exercise their imagination in.
The instructions are good and I'm very happy with the end result, but I encountered a few issues along the way. If you decide to make one of these, don't make the same mistakes I did...
The bath towel I bought was 640gsm and because there were no matching hand towels left on sale in the same colour I bought a bath mat instead which was 1050 gsm. Most luxurious, but next time I will use thinner towels.
While the size of the bath mat was fine, the thickness caused me no end of problems with the sewing machine. My needle kept getting gummy and skipping stitches when sewing the pupils of the eyes, the nose and whiskers. I guess two layers of heat and bond was a bit much. Next time I'd sew those bits onto the white fabric before sewing the fabric onto the towel. I also had problems with the feed dogs due to the thickness of the towel when satin stitching the face bits and had to stitch backwards and forwards again and again. It turned out the satin stitch worked best for me when I used the reverse functionality - though sewing circles backward was a bit tricky.
As for putting the face together... my sewing machine foot just would not accommodate so many thicknesses of towel, so I ended up hand sewing on the ears and muzzle using a darning needle.
I can't wait to give it to my friend's two year old and see what she makes of it!
I first came across these cute hooded towels when I was pregnant with Poppy and working from home. I had lots of time to surf the internet for baby things to sew while waiting for people to join conference calls. I couldn't imagine making one for when Pickle is born, but they seem perfect for a toddler to exercise their imagination in.
The instructions are good and I'm very happy with the end result, but I encountered a few issues along the way. If you decide to make one of these, don't make the same mistakes I did...
The bath towel I bought was 640gsm and because there were no matching hand towels left on sale in the same colour I bought a bath mat instead which was 1050 gsm. Most luxurious, but next time I will use thinner towels.
While the size of the bath mat was fine, the thickness caused me no end of problems with the sewing machine. My needle kept getting gummy and skipping stitches when sewing the pupils of the eyes, the nose and whiskers. I guess two layers of heat and bond was a bit much. Next time I'd sew those bits onto the white fabric before sewing the fabric onto the towel. I also had problems with the feed dogs due to the thickness of the towel when satin stitching the face bits and had to stitch backwards and forwards again and again. It turned out the satin stitch worked best for me when I used the reverse functionality - though sewing circles backward was a bit tricky.
As for putting the face together... my sewing machine foot just would not accommodate so many thicknesses of towel, so I ended up hand sewing on the ears and muzzle using a darning needle.
I can't wait to give it to my friend's two year old and see what she makes of it!
Definitely too many decisions! So awesome that you got a bunch of hand me downs and that towel turned out so cute. I also liked the pillow you made. I need to start sewing more!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I think sewing must be my version of nesting and I clearly have too much time on my hands. I don't think I'd have had the desire or time to make a novelty towel two years ago!
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