Appliqued Baby Onesies

A friend had a baby shower last weekend and I was so excited to make something for her and her little boy! I decided to do a set of embroidered baby onesides along with a combination changing pad and diaper pouch.

I found this great set of onesies at Old Navy just a couple weeks ago. They were available in blues, pinks and neutrals. I liked that they had a little bit of a design and contrasting piping around the edges without having so much going on that they'd distract from my applique. The fabric is from the Dwell Studio line at JoAnns and is a heavier home decor weight.

Check out my other post on how to make an applique if you need some guidance.

Basically I followed those instructions and then finished off the design by stitching around each image. I couldn't decide on a straight stitch or a zig zag and actually ended up doing both. For some of the trickier turns I had to turn the sewing maching wheel by hand or go very slowly. I also had to put the needle down and raise the foot to turn the fabric around quite a bit. If you click on the photo below you can see a larger version of it where you can see the stitches better.

And they're ready for the baby shower. Now they just need a chubby little baby in them!

And if you need more ideas, you can find my instructions for a matching diaper pouch and changing pad here!

How to Make an Applique

I'll admit it, I'd never done an applique until a couple weeks ago because I always thought it would be complicated. I was SO wrong! Other than accidentially fusing one piece to the ironing board the whole process was fast and easy. I used Wonder-Under (Pellon 725 Heavy-Duty Wonder-Under Transfer Web). You could also use Heat n Bond but I haven't tried it and I had no complaints with the Wonder-Under. So here we go!

1a. If you're doing a specific shape (like a letter) trace your shape onto the smooth side of the Wonder-Under (WU). This is the back so trace your design backwards. Then cut out a piece of fabric larger than the piece of WU so you don't get the glue on your ironing board. I now know this from experience.

1b. If you're freehanding or cutting out a design that's part of a fabric (like my camel below) just roughly cut out your image larger than you'll need. Then trace that onto your WU and cut the WU about 1/8" smaller than your outline. As I said above, you want your WU to be smaller than your fabric to protect your iron and ironing board.

2. Use a hot iron (your specific type of WU will have instructions on what setting to use) and iron the rough side of the WU against the wrong side of your fabric. The WU can look kind of crinkly and like it's not going to turn out well but the iron smoothes it right out.

3. After it cools cut out your shape.

4. Peel off the back of the WU and your applique is complete and ready to be used! Part of the wonder is that this is heat activated so after peeling off the backing you have a smooth non-sticky backing.

5. To use the applique, position it onto your surface, fire up your iron again and iron it into place. Now it is permanently fixed in place. If you want you can straight stitch or zig zag stitch around the edges. Because the WU is heat activated it's not sticky and won't gum up your sewing maching.

Here's the finished appliques before they were put to use. To see the final projects visit my posts for LOVE Shirt and Appliqued Baby Onesies.

Tutorial: LOVE Shirt

My sister visited this weekend and we decided to make her a shirt for Valentine's Day based on the LOVE statue in Philadelphia. If you need more instruction, I'll do a more detailed tutorial on how to make an applique later this week so this one will be a bit more brief.

First I ironed Wonder-Under (specifically Pellon 725 Heavy-Duty Wonder-Under Transfer Web) to the back of the fabric we chose. Then I traced the letters onto the fabric using a stencil we had created of each letter. You can download the PDF of the letters for personal use here. Then we cut out each letter, peeled off the Wonder-Under backing, positioned the letters onto the shirt then ironed them down. Then I did a zig zag stitch around each letter and project complete! We found the plain long-sleeved gray shirt at Target in the men's section. They had a variety of colors and they had a few in the boys section if you need a smaller size.

Here's a close up of the letters. We chose a navy quilting cotton for the L, V, and E. For the O we used a fabric with tiny forks, spoons and knives. My sister is loves to bake (she's fabulous by the way) and she's single so this shirt is subtly dedicated to food love.