Monkeying Around!

I was asked by a coworker at one of my jobs to make some burp cloths for her 5 month old daughter. For a shower gift, I made some burp cloths that were some of the first ones I'd done. I've gotten a bit more fancy with them since. Here are a few pictures of ones I've done in the past. I didn't take pictures of the construction process because I wasn't thinking about blogging at the time. Something I will remedy in the future...
Enjoy!

This is one of the first ones that I ever made. It's supposed to be a monogram, but the W ended up being smaller than I wanted. It was my first one, so it wasn't too terribly bad.

aWg

 Here is a close up. As you can see, I had some spacing issues where my machine didn't catch with the bobbin at times. This was before I discovered stabilizer ;)

Spacy

 Here is an example of the next one I did. The middle initial turned out a lot better this time around. I did a wide zig-zag on this one. It made some of the turns and corners look a little funny, but all in all, it was good. I also did another one that said "savannah" in the same font.

sKg

 I started getting a bit more fancy the more I made these. I whipped these out one night over Christmas break at my parent's house. There was one more burp cloth I included with this set that isn't pictured here. It was done in the same fabric as the monogrammed one with the name "mara" on it in the same font (this is for my future niece!). It's not pictured here because I didn't have it outlined and sewn down when this picture was taken. (Now that I'm taking a closer look at this, I'm realizing that the S in the monogram is upside down. Dangit!)

Hoot! in pink and green

 Here is a close-up of one of the burp cloths in this set. I really like the owl ribbon that I found for this. It is so cute and can be used with a wide range of complimenting ribbon colors.

Hoot! close-up

I went looking one Sunday a few weeks ago for some cloth and ribbon to do this for one of the guys in my office whose wife had just had a baby. After riding out to Hobby Lobby and seeing the empty parking lot, I remembered that they were closed on Sunday. I'm glad that they are off on Sunday, but I did kick myself for forgetting this that day. The closest fabric store to my location was a Wal-Mart. I was dreading going in on a Sunday, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find this gorgeous fabric there. Finding an associate who could cut my fabric was a whole other story. After looking around for someone on my own for a bit, I ended up calling the store from my phone, telling them I was back there (with others who were waiting, too) and needed fabric cut. And then there was the whole checking out process that made me want to stab myself in the eye is always a much dreaded event for any Wal-Mart trip I need to make. By the end of the evening, I was happy with my final results, though.

Pretty Paisly in pink

Close up of one that I used some fabric strips on as accents.

Here is a teaser for some that I am working on right now. I went online to check out the nursery of the baby I'm making these for. She's got an animal theme going on, and her mom always calls her a "little monkey" :) I'm wanting to use the same fabric from the "Pretty Paisley" burp cloths, so I added a little pink bow to the monkey to keep them cohesive. And to make the monkey a bit more girly. This is the first time I've appliqued a picture on the burp cloths, but I think it turned out really cute. I was even able to use some corduroy fabric on the dark brown parts to add some more texture. I'm looking forward to finishing these up this week. I'll post more pictures along with some tutorials when I finish them. I'm also thinking of a different way to package these that includes a pacifier clip using the same color scheme. We'll see what happens!

Little Monkey in pink