Sunday, January 4, 2009

Sewing baby things

For charity, not for me! Here are some of the things I made over the past 2 months for Newborns In Need.

This is what we call a butterfly shirt. You can see in this picture that the shirt opens up completely to lay the baby on it. There are small pieces of velcro on the sides and in the front to close it. The pattern is on the NIN website under "hospital shirt" http://newbornsinneed.org/html/sewing_patterns.html . These are used for babies in NICU that may have tubes or wires hooked up to them. The way it opens makes it easier for the nurses to dress the babies and to examine them when needed.


Here are a few different size/style diaper shirts. All of these are made with light weight cotton and lined with cotton. You can also use light weight cotton blends.
This is a blanket I made with some scraps of material. I had a large piece of the Peter Rabbit fabric and surrounded it with pink strips, then had the white with pink dots for the backing. I machine quilted diagonal lines. Something like this only takes about an hour to do. I think this quilt is about 36 inches by 40 inches.


Here are a couple of sleepers and a lap front t-shirt. The sleeper pattern is in the NIN Pattern Set #1 that can be ordered from their website.
http://newbornsinneed.org/html/pattern_sets.html
The pattern set is a little hard to follow so it helps if someone can show you how to do it. It takes about 20 minutes total to make one sleeper. The t-shirts go together quicker than that. I sew these in assembly line fashion -- do all the sleeves, do all the neck bindings, do all the sleeve bindings, etc. I don't know if the t-shirt pattern is in one of the NIN sets, I got it from another NIN volunteer. These all must be made from stretchy knits. I use the serger to make them but they can be sewn on a regular sewing machine. I later put snaps on the front of the sleepers. These are all preemie size. Aren't baby clothes the cutest things?

If one of your New Year's resolutions is to help others more, please consider donating your sewing skills to a group such as Newborns in Need. It is a very rewarding experience. It is a great chance to learn new sewing skills and meet new people. Also, you get to be creative as you try to use every little scrap of donated material and make every yard be used to it's fullest potential. The items are so small that you get that satisfaction of completing something very quickly. Best of all it helps comfort our littlest babies and their families.

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