Tuesday, March 12, 2013

One little, two little, three little burp cloths

Sung to the tune of the children's song: "One little; two little; three little Indians..."

One little, two little, three little burp cloths:

The Modern Collection


Four little, five little, six little burp cloths:

The Whimsy Collection

Seven little, eight little, nine little burp cloths! Ten little burp cloths for bay--bee!

The Princess Collection

Construction Notes

As I said in my previous post, I got the idea to make these from Carla at Lollyquilts blog. I screwed up and didn't even realize that there was a difference between prefolded and non folded cloth diapers. Prefolded, as Carla used, cost a dollar more, so I got the cheaper ones. Who knew prefolded actually are made differently?? Not me.

I did not want to return my diapers, which were basically rectangles of cheesecloth-like weave of fabric, so I simply folded them in thirds, then in half. I zigzagged around the edges to seal the layers. With 6 layers of cloth, I figured they'd be absorbent enough for the job.

Then I decorated the edges using the scraps I had purchased.

Using Ribbon

I concealed the edges of the fabric appliqué using ribbon, much like Carla did. I wanted to use up ribbon I'm finding around my parents' house, and I pulled the ribbon from Mom's copious collection of gift wrapping supplies (I swear, I have uncovered at least 10 boxes of bows, wrapping paper, and ribbon! Geez, Mom!) Most of the ribbon was not suitable for sewing, but I found about 10 spools of fiber ribbon in different colors. I tested them to make sure they wouldn't melt when ironed. I also avoided wire-edged ribbon. We don't want baby to get poked!!

Not all of the ribbon worked great, but heck, baby's going to spit up on them. Doesn't need to be impeccable...just washable.

Project Burpcloth

The limited fabric selections and scrap sizes, and the uncoordinated ribbon colors made for a creative design challenge. Since I know several sewing techniques, I was challenged to apply them for interesting designs. You can see a couple of patchwork pieced designs, decorative stitching, and fancy embellishment (ruffle).

The most complicated was the one in the Princess collection in the lower left. I made two gathered ruffles out of a  folded-over strip of the princess-themed fabric and sewed it down. Nice and girly!

The biggest design challenge was the patchwork in the Whimsy collection. Nothing looked right to edge it. I ended up buying a pack of fat quarters in solids at Joann's and made simple fold over binding out of the dark gray.

The top one in the Modern collection was a lot of fun. I used a decorative stitch over a thin plain white ribbon in  contrasting thread color to add visual interest.

Thanks for looking! Now off to the post office to mail to the lucky little one.

1 comment: