Lil Bro/Big Sis

My cousin is getting ready to have baby #2. Her little girl is about 18 months old. Baby #2 is supposed to wait until May 3 before making his debut, but he's already started to come on two separate occasions! Thankfully the doctors have been able to stop mom's contractions both times, though. Several months ago, my cousin asked me to make big sister/little brother shirts for the kids to wear home from the hospital. I told her to remind me when she was about a month away from her delivery date. Little man seems to be wanting out sooner, so I had to buckle down last week and get those things made up before his birthday. I went to the Babies R Us right down the street from my house and they were working on moving their location. Their kids clothes were BOGOF! I was able to score a 3 pack of newborn shirts and a onesie for sister all for $10! Score! I got this really cute plaid fabric at one of the smaller fabric stores in town. I always have such a difficult time deciding which fabric to choose when I'm at those stores because there are SO MANY that I want! Here is little brother's shirt:

It's SO tiny!

When I chose the shirts, I knew I more than likely wouldn't be able to applique a newborn sized onesie on my sewing machine. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to squeeze the whole word "brother" on the front of one. Satin stitching around that would be next to impossible. On second though, I might should have tried just straight stitching the outline of the letters on there and tried to fit the whole word on there. A different project for a different day...

The letters are all ironed on and ready to go!

I just can't get over how tiny this it!

I started with the satin stitch, just like I would any other kind of applique, and I realized that this wasn't something I was going to be able to just whip out. I had my normal stabilizer on there and right as I got down to the first corner of the letter "l", I noticed that I had put a hole in the front of the shirt!! I knew this one was going to be chunked in the trash, so I decided to use it as a practice shirt. I took off the stabilizer I had on the back and replaced it with a thicker stabilizer. I was able to finish up the "l" pretty easy. When I moved on to the dot in the "i" the thread started bunching up on me.

Thread bunched up right here.

 After several experimentations with stabilizer and backing and what not, I finally figured out what I needed to do. I got some scrap white cloth and pinned it to the back of my letters. Then I pinned my heaviest stabilizer behind that. After fiddling with my tension and stuff, I was finally happy with what to do to make it work. I started in on shirt #2 and everything worked out fine with it.

Shirt #2 = SUCCESS!

 I'm so glad these things came in a pack of 3! I'm also really glad that I started on these first and not big sister's, because her was a one shot kind of deal! Thankfully, I was able to get hers done without any hitches! She's a size 24mo. but because of the decoration up at the top, I had to move the applique a little bit lower on her shirt. Then I was thinking that because it was a onesie that maybe the applique would end up being tucked into her pants some, so I decided to make her onesie into a regular shirt.I just measured a little bit lower to where I thought the hemline should be.

Big Sis as a onesie!

Just measure...

And cut!

I was left with a cut that likes to roll up on itself. I've been seeing these double needles and I decided that I wanted to try it out. This was the perfect time to see it work! In the picture below if you look really closely, you can see that the needle is doubled. There is one shank that holds it in place, but two needles below the red part. I threaded a bobbin with the green thread I was using and I put it on my spool holder beside my regular sized spool of thread.

Double Needle

I folded the raw edge of the shirt under and sewed a double stitch around the bottom. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the shirt was bought that way!

Finished hem, double stitched.

Finished Shirt!

I mailed them off on Wednesday and my cousin texted me yesterday that she had gotten them in the mail already! I can't wait to see the kids in them! :)