Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Baby Shower Gift Idea - Handmade Burp Cloths

My post on Pregnancy Journal has been a huge hit on my blog. Thanks to Jen @ Iheart organizing for her feature and all of you that liked it. As mentioned in that post, I also made some burp clothes for the baby shower gift.

I bought some colorful cotton fabric and a few yards of white flannel.


I washed and ironed all fabric, cut each cotton fabric to a rectangle, size approximately long enough to be a burp cloth. Cut the flannel to same size for backing each burp cloth, layered on colorful fabric with wrong side out, cut corners and sewed all around, leaving a 2 inch opening to turn the right side out. Once turned all the way out, I sewed around the edge, concealing the opening. You could do a couple of straight stitches in the middle so it stays flat when washed. I skipped it, since the patterns on the fabrics are so cute, I didn't want to mess with it.


It is not my own idea. Sewing is not my skill, so I followed tutorials available on the blogland, like this and this.

One big tip I learned from a seamstress is, while turning the fabric inside out, you can get perfect sharp corners by using a needle or safety pin to pull the corners out. Be gentle though or you pull the fabric threads out. Ignore my nails screaming NEED-A-MANICURE!






Look at these beauties. My absolute favorite is the top one, so colorful and pretty.




I tried to sew a band to bundle them up, didn't come out very good, but it served the purpose. I stamped 'handmade just for you' on it, but again, didn't come out as nice as I would have liked, but served the purpose.




The gift was given, loved by the then-mom-to-be, baby is born, probably used and disposed these already and close to celebrating his first birthday. But everytime I see these pictures, I get all giddy that I could sew something that looked so pretty. Truth is, its the fabric that's pretty, not my sewing. Oh, well.

Seriously, if you own a sewing machine, consider this for a baby shower gift. It will be an easy & pretty gift as well as something they can use daily for quite some time.

There is another version of burp cloths with cloth diapers that I want to give a try next time.