My friend Virginia received the gifts I sent for her new little girl, so now I can show them to you! I think you’ll be able to guess what her favorite color is. Despite that fact, we have been friends since kindergarten!
First up, the shoes that I originally posted about here:
I also wanted to make something for the new mama. Virginia casually mentioned (over a year ago) that she liked the apron I was wearing in a picture on my personal blog. It was a present from my husband from Anthropologie and I loooove it and have always wanted to copy it. So I remembered her comment and used the opportunity to make a similar version for her. I am so in awe of how perfect the pockets turned out. Pockets and I usually don’t have a healthy working relationship. I cut them purposefully on the bias so they’d have a different design and I stitched them to the apron with a triangular bar tack at the top so they’d look extra professional. Do you know what I’m talking about? I hope so, because I don’t have a close picture.
Finally, sticking with what works, I made another minky initial blanket, this time with a ruffled border (I swear that “L” is purple and matches the fabric, it just doesn’t appear that way):
The concept was great, the finished product was beautiful and probably my favorite thing that I’ve ever sewed. The construction, however, not so fun. Every stitch had me shaking my head and swearing I was never doing a ruffle border ever ever again. But then of course I finished and it was so dang cute, so I probably will.
If you want to make one of these, please note that the 2.5″ ruffle border took an entire yard of fabric. The blanket itself is 1 yard.
That ruffle border IS so dang cute! What material did you use?
Very nice!
What made the ruffle part a pain? I’m going to leave this as a comment rather than pick up the phone, because… I can. But it’s a real question. What aspect of it is difficult? I haven’t done many ruffles. Ummm… maybe not any? Thinking…. nope, can’t think of any. That’s sad. Don’t tell Disney, that being her core business and all. That and the Stuff.
I LOVE THAT BLANKET. And the initial. :) And ditto Susan’s question on the ruffle… (me, who can barely sew a straight line, wants to know how to do a ruffle… *commence hysterical laughter*)
Kelli: I got the material here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28165284 but I see that she only has the dots now. It is a Michael Miller print.
Susan: I think it was just a combination of doing math to figure out how many strips I needed to connect, which was slightly impossible because of the variable nature of ruffles, and then sewing them in a sandwich with minky, which has stretch, and trying to control that and make sure I caught all layers in the seam, although when you’re sewing a sandwich inside out like that, you are basically sewing blind, so a lot of it involves hoping and wishing. luckily for me, the wishing and hoping worked out.
Sarah, you crack me up. I’ve seen stuff you’ve made, so you can’t tell me you can’t sew! The easiest (least scientific) way to make a ruffle is to set your tension as high as it will go (higher number) and your stitch length as long as it will go and then sew. play with it a little and you’ll get a feel for how different fabrics and different tensions make a tighter or looser ruffle. so easy and fun!
Thanks! Now I can drool over all the other wonderful options and debate how much I can buy without my hubby doing more than rolling his eyes… ;)
What a great baby gift! The baby shoes and the blanket are so sweet!
And, great pockets. I totally know what you mean.
Great blanket. And I love the apron.
I just made a cute little girls’ apron the other day with a ruffled edge. It was my first time doing a ruffle, and I had such a hard time with it that I swore I would never do one again also. But when I was finished and saw just how adorable it is, I offered to make 2 more for friends’ daughters haha. Hopefully with more practice it will become easier. Your blanket & apron turned out great!