Give a basket of quick and easy baby items as a gift for the upcoming baby shower. The baby items include an embroidered onesie, burp cloth, baby bib, and receiving blanket featuring the Noah’s Ark by Lesley Grainger #80051 embroidery collection.
This cute and fun collection features appliqué, so pull your stash of threads and fabrics. Decorate and add to the basket anything else a new baby would need. The complete and detailed instructions for the embroidered onesie, burp cloth, baby bib and receiving blanket are included in the embroidery collection.
Embroidering on a baby onesie and fabric choices for baby items
First of all, gather supplies for embroidering on a baby onesie. You will need a baby onesie, polymesh cutaway stabilizer, washaway stabilizer, fusible knit interfacing, ballpoint embroidery needles, polyester embroidery threads, temporary spray adhesive, marking pen, double sided fabric tape, Noah’s Ark by Lesley Grainger #80051 embroidery collection, a printout template of the embroidery design used and scrap of fabric for appliqué. The Giraffe 1 appliqué #80051-05 was used on the sample baby onesie.
Using temporary spray adhesive, spray between two pieces of polymesh cutaway stabilizer. Hoop the two layers. Using the template, mark the center of the stabilizer only. Then, mark the center of the onesie. Turn the onesie inside out. Spray the stabilizer in the hoop with temporary spray adhesive. Line up the center marks with the onesie and hooped stabilizer.
Additional tips for embroidering on a baby onesie
Baste onesie in place if available on embroidery machine. Because the fabric for the onesie is stretchy, use a ballpoint embroidery needle. Also, use polyester embroidery threads as they are stronger and colorfast. Colorfast means that when bleached, the thread color remains the same, which is ideal for cleaning white baby clothes. Otherwise, the thread color might turn grey, which can happen when embroidering with a non-colorfast thread. Also, after the fabric appliqué tackdown is done, place a piece of washaway stabilizer over the fabric and onesie for better stitch results. And the most important one, don’t walk away while the embroidery is stitching! Just as soon as you do, something unexpected happens! Because the onesie is loose around the hoop – as you see in the above photo – there are too many possibilities for a piece of the onesie to get caught in the needle. It is better to stop the machine if you need to be away.
Embroider the design following the basic appliqué instructions which are included in the Noah’s Ark #80051 embroidery collection. Remove the onesie from hoop and trim stabilizer. Remove washaway stabilizer from front.
Using a small piece of fusible knit interfacing or other similar product, iron it over the wrong side of the entire embroidered area. The interfacing will keep the embroidery threads and stitches from irritating the baby’s skin.
Fabric choices for the other baby gift ideas
For the baby blanket, we used a baby blue flannel and lined it with a cotton baby printed fabric. You could also use two pieces of cotton fabric which would have made it even lighter. The flannel is napped, so when embroidering, it is best to use a washaway stabilizer over the embroidered stitches. It keeps the stitches from sinking into the fibers of the flannel.
For the Burp Cloth, we stitched the Elephant 1 Appliqué #80051-28. After the fabric appliqué tackdown is done, place a piece of washaway over the fabric and burp cloth. Use two pieces of a medium weight tearaway stabilizer behind the flannel. Because the flannel and even the cotton are considered woven fabrics, a tearaway stabilizer should be used.
There are no rules so have fun with your fabric choices for your items. Also, be sure to pick out some fun fabrics for the appliqués.
Our cute model for the baby onesie is one of OESD’s staff member’s six month old son. He might have a future modeling career!
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