Fast baby gifts

July 9th, 2009

So it’s been a few weeks since I got anything up in here life has been busy! The kids got out of school, the hubby had vacation time, The hubby’s car broke down and we’ve had visitors left and right. I’m relieved and excited to have my house back again. Though, I’m still finding time to be the most difficult thing to find!

while looking for ideas for baby gifts (I have a few friends expecting their first children) I decided to make washcloths, burpcloths, and bibs for the babies that are to come (basically it doesn’t matter how cute and cuddly a baby is they puke a lot and get rather dirty) so every mom should have an ample supply of burp and wash cloths as well as a healthy supply of bibs for the little baby’s neck. This tutorial will walk you through making some burp cloths and wash cloths, the bib tutorial will follow later

These directions are given for using a serger. These are great projects for anyone that is wanting to learn to use their serger and are excellent for learning to practice curves. From the material list given you can make 20 washcloths or 12 burp rags (or 6 burp rags and 10 washcloths) Quite a good starter supply for the new mom!

SUPPLIES:

1 yard of soft print flannel
1 yard of solid color flannel
thread
ruler (yard or meter stick is perfect)
scissors (or rotary cutter, ruler and mat)
marker
old scratched up rendered useless CD
straight pins

DIRECTIONS:

Cut your materials as shown in the diagram below, for each cloth (burp or wash) you will need 1 piece of flannel print and 1 piece of solid in the same size)
Place 1 piece of printed fabric to one piece solid with the wrong sides together matching all raw edges.
Take your craptacular CD and place it on the corners of your fabric, line it up so that one edge of the CD touches both sides and trace around the circular edge (this is the serge cutting guideline) Repeat this for all 4 corners of your cloth.
pin along edges about 1″ apart all the way around your cloth.
Serge along edges following the curves and allowing the blades of the serger to cut off the excess fabric in the corners. I use the edge of the front of my serger as the guide so that it just shaves the edges of my fabric along the straight edges. (tip at the corners go full speed, it takes a little practice, but the faster your go the nicer they turn out!)
Press and fold! You have made some awesome quick gifts for a wonderful baby to puke on!

TIPS AND TRICKS:

Go fast around the corners, they will turn out much nicer than if you attempt to go them slowly.
Use wooly nylon in your lower loopers, it is much softer than traditional thread and will keep the entire project soft against the baby’s skin.
Using a CD to round the corners is optional, you can just ‘have a go at it and hope for the best’

Enjoy!
April

This tutorial brought to you by VistaPrint, please consider visiting their site if you enjoy our content!