When our children grow up, so do their friends. Many of those same youngsters who hung out in our kitchens, tied up our telephones (before absolutely everyone had her own personal cell phone) and shared secrets with our children, now have babies of their own. And those babies are special in a special way.
Just as we personalize garments and items for our own grandchildren, we often are moved to create something unique for these babies.I often enjoy matching baby gifts to the chosen nursery theme. When young mothers register at a store on-line, baby shower guests, family and friends can check on-line to see the items on their wish lists.
I like to enlarge the pictures and find machine embroidery designs that match or coordinate with the theme. With the unbelievable number of embroidery designs available, either in collections or for individual purchase, it seems incomprehensible that there aren’t designs that would meet even the most uncommon theme.
This little layette was made for one of my daughter’s dear friends. She had chosen a safari theme for her little boy’s nursery and I found that they very closely matched the Anita Goodesign Safari collection.
I started with some very nice quality blanks–a onesie, bib and cap-and some fingertip towels.  Then I went to my Brother 4500D embroidery machine and had a big time playing with designs, fabrics and threads.  The set was very well received and the young parents, who had received almost every item on their wish list, enjoyed having  some one-of-a-kind “safari” items for their very special baby.
The onesie, bib and cap embroidery were all done with the techniques used in the earlier post “baby work uniform.”
There was nothing tricky about the burp cloths. I like fingertip towels better than prefolded diapers or the standard dog bone shaped burp cloths. All the babies in our family babies were chronic spitters and went through 12-18 burp clothes a day. The fingertip towels worked best for quick wipe ups and easy laundering.
The safari animals were embroidered on the jungle fabric and then appliqued the piece to a fingertip towel. But I did convert two designs to applique. The elephant is made of ultrasuede and the lion’s mane is polar fleece. Some of the rick rack is jumbo fuzzy chenille and other is regular cotton. The extra texture added interest and the addition of rick rack gave it a little more pizzazz.
Earlier on in my sewing experience, I was reluctant to use rick rack on a project because of the way it usually curls toward the center stitching after it is sewn down. I overcame that reservation by using monofilament thread and sewing it down free motion from point to point of the rick rack. By doing so, it cannot curl up and continues to lie flat after being laundered.
I had so much fun making this baby gift for little Ethan.
4 responses to “Nursery Themed Baby Gifts”