...

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[patandchickens]

The moment I found out I'm pregnant, I will buy and hand tie-dye my child's onesies/shirts/whatever.

Or, the moment you find out you're pregnant, you will look up the safety info on tie dye dyes and be seized by a whole new never-before-experienced paranoia about whether you really want a newborn chewing and sucking on that (Speaking from personal experience but it seems to be real common )

Anyway, my extent to making things for babies is blankets. Has anyone made clothes for their children? If so, do elaborate on the fabric choices, patterns, length of time to make, color/pattern choices, etc, because I'm interested. I'd like to make at least a few baby clothes, even if I do hide them from my hubby to avoid freaking him out. tongue I only sew by hand though, because I find sewing machines fussy and they freak me out.

The traditional choice for "I am pregnant, or hoping to be, and I want to handmake things for my baby" is a christening outfit, generally dress-style irrespective of baby's gender. I have seen some SUPER-complex-fancy-amazing-handwork ones. If you are not of a faith that would make use of a christening gown then you better hope it's a girl, as dresses are quite easy to sew but sleepers/onesies are NOT. (Not if you want them to be really USEFUL. If you just want it as a project then of course you can do anything you want).

Personally I did not sew hardly anything for my two as babies because a) they were not girls so I was deprived of the 'oo, let's make beautiful fancywork things' motivation and b) I find it very, very, very annoying trying to sew TEENSY TINY things in fine knits and have them come out an appropriate shape and size. Hand-sewing is tougher to do well in stretchy knits, too (unless I'm missing something, which is certainly possible).

I guess it kind of depends whether you want fun-to-make or useful-to-wear, and if the latter then what you would actually BE dressing the baby in. Quite honestly, mine basically lived in cloth diapers and a coupla onesies or sleepers (depending on season) until they got to where they were walking a lot, so that is nearly all of the first year. And I only ever used maybe 3-4 different onesies or sleepers on them (from thrift stores), as I was doing laundry frequently *anyhow* and we used spare cloth diapers to protect against spitups whenever possible.

Of course this is only the "lazy mom" energy-saving way of doing things, plenty of people DO have lots of Actual Outfits for their kids and there's nothing wrong with that either.

Do yourself a favor though and make things with FEET attached, not things requiring socks or booties. It is physically impossible to keep socks or booties on yer average infant for longer than about seventeen seconds, and after the nine hundredth time you've put them back on you will sooooo wish there were attached feeties instead

The only things I made were a ring sling, baby blankets/quilts, and I got some microfiber fleece to cut to the right size/shape for our style of swaddling. (For the second baby, who has always been very cold no matter what and also would wiggle any other swaddling cloth apart in no time flat).

I just could not deal with trying to do so many itsy-tiny sleeves and zippers and all, in fine knits and make it all come out right. Especially when if you hunt thru thrift stores you can find cooler better stuff than you could make, for less than you'd pay for material LOL

But that's just me, and I will readily admit to being way towards the "energy conserving" lazy end of the spectrum

If you DO want to try it, my VERY STRONG RECOMMENDATION would be not to even bother looking for commercial patterns, go get a couple thrift-store garments and rip them apart and use them as patterns. For any outfit in which fit matters, though, this is dangerous to do in advance of actually having a baby, because babies come in a remarkable variety of shapes and sizes, plus a lot of the stuff in thrift stores could not possibly fit ANY human baby properly in the first place

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[hwillm1977]

I have a 7 week old baby right now... when I was born I was 6 pounds, hubby was 6.5 pounds... we assumed we'd have a tiny little baby, instead she was 9 pounds 1 ounce and 24 inches long... she's now wearing clothes marked 6-9 months and all the littler clothes we got (used) have never been tried on.

I spent hours while pregnant knitting a cute kimono sweater in olive green, it doesn't fit her.

There are some free kids patterns online, but really you can buy things cheaper (onesies and pjs is all my little girl wears, fussing with fancy clothes is not worth the time...lol)

Someone on here made toddler t-shirts from plain white t's by appliquing on some dino and trucks I think? Anyway, those were adorable... So once I'm not spending all my hours trying to calm a colicky baby, I plan on buying plain white onesies in bulk and appliquing cute things onto them.

Although I wanted nothing in pink, that's mostly what I've ended up with since we bought the clothes used... but we have tons of purple, blue, green, yellow and red too... it's easier when she's pink because everyone knows she's a girl and I don't have to explain to 50 different people in the grocery store that she's a girl wearing blue

 

[journey11]

Beyond knitting/crocheting hats, blankies and a couple of sweaters, I didn't make many clothes myself. I am so slow knitting that I'd probably get farther on a sewing machine instead!

I didn't want to know my baby's sex either. Drove people nutz and I enjoyed every minute of it! I nicknamed her "critter" until she made herself known. That drove people crazy too, but I didn't care--my baby, not theirs!

I hear ya, I hate pink too. I love purple and blue (all shades of blue!) on a girl.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I made a lot of my baby's clothes. I used a German pattern book. If you don't know how to sew forget using them

I also didn't care for the stereotypical colors. As a matter of fact I knitted a burgundy sweater for my baby. My co-workers were aghast that I would use that color for a baby. Amazingly it didn't kill her when she wore it. I made things in strong colors as well as grey and brown. I basically used whatever fabric I had or found on sale that I liked.
I was pretty sure I would have a girl, but until she came out, we didn't know for sure. We used a lot of primary colors in the decorating part. But since we also relied heavily on second hand items given to us as well as new baby gifts (usually in the standard color of pink for baby girl or pastels), it really turned out to be a mish-mash.
I made a poster for her at the changing table using cut-outs of faces from magazines and a geometric black light poster.
Babies are supposed to show a special interest in faces and geometric patterns. Again many of my friends thought I was really weird for putting a black light poster in my babies changing area.

But I digress. I really enjoyed making my baby's clothes. They have snaps on cloth strips, which make it easier to put snaps on baby pants. I also often used old adult clothes to make little clothes for her.

I recently went to our local fabric store to look for fabric to use for DD's baby. I was so disappointed in the poor selection they had of just about anything. I didn't even see bias tape or the ribbon with the snaps on it.

 

[moolie]

I made cloth diapers, bibs and burp cloths, diaper shirts/onesies, sleepers with feet, sleepers without feet (May and June babies needed to stay cool over the summer months!), track pants/leggings, overalls, t-shirts, dresses (a couple were made out of maternity blouses that my MIL made for me which were just too girlie for myself but perfect for little girl dresses), and hats/bonnets. I had worked at a fabric store while I was a university student and I had amassed quite a bit of fabric over the years (still have some of it, along with all the patterns--we each got 2 free patterns each month).

After the first year I made "inside out pants" and t-shirts, and made a cute corduroy jacket lined with fleece (never again, that was a toughie). The "inside out pants" were pull-on elastic-waist pants where I sewed two identical pairs in contrasting quilt fabrics (usually one print and one plain) and then sewed them together so that when the cuffs were turned up the other colour would show--they were super easy and I made them for just about everyone once friends saw my girls in them.

I haven't really sewn since, except to make baby shower gifts for friends out of the same patterns and two quilts--one for hubbie's brother's wedding and one for my brother's wedding. And mending. And Girl Guide badges.

Come to think of it, sewing little things was fun. I wonder if there's a market for it? Anyone need any baby things sewn?

 

[patandchickens]

I'm curious about natural plant dyes too. Though I suppose I could make my own dyes, and see how well they set in just a plain cotton cloth before attempting to dye pieces of clothing. Anyone makes their own dyes for anything?

My m-i-l does a *lot* of dying, although mostly wool rather than cotton. The range of colors available from purely natural dyes is somewhat limited and some take longer soaking than would probably work for tie dying. It might be fun to play with though!

I suddenly had an image of an infant being foiled by those little snaps holding it's booties on. Wait, no one thought to sew a few snaps to booties and socks and the hems of the garment?! That would have saved us ages and ages looking for my nephews socks

All very ha ha ho ho and if you've had it actually WORK for you then I congratulate you on your luck, but the people I've seen try it have had pretty close to zero luck. At best, it keeps part of the foot covered for longer; at worst, all it does is prevent a sock or bootie from getting lost when it comes off. It is by no means the same as built-in feeties. Of course how much it MATTERS whether a baby is barefoot depends on your climate and season.

I've always admired people who could carry their infants in slings. I've worked with enough little ones to always want to have one arm around them at all times, convenient or not.

That's what I mostly did with the sling. The kid is not necessarily just swingin' in the breeze

Until after birth, at least, because I was thinking about that a little. I remember that I was 1 ounce shy of ten pounds, and I didn't fit into anything they had brought along.

My midwives always advised, for hospital births (which my first was, second was at home) that you bring a larger-newborn size sleeper, or two sizes of sleeper, to take the baby home in. Cuz it is easier to manipulate a big garment so a small baby fits safely in it than it is to stuff a big baby into something small. My second son never did have an infant cap, though (despite being cold a lot), as his head was bigger than any size crib-type cap I could find. He had a biiiiiiig head

You know, nursery decorations are another fine outlet for creativity (one where practicality is less of an issue), also a big quilt or whatever to put on the floor when the baby is learning to roll around and sit up and stuff. Or car-seat covers for winter babies, those are easy to sew and can be made creatively cute. Or you can sew a custom diaper bag, that would actually be a SMART thing to do, or sew your own cloth diapers

Pat

 

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[miss_thenorth]

Just curious neko--what time is it there?