Burp Cloths Part II {sewing}

I have been on a sewing roll as I prep for our little man's impending arrival!

We are at the 35 week mark which means only a couple weeks until I'm full term!!  Wowza!

I spent the last week and a half teaching myself some basic sewing...it started off pretty rough, but by the time I was done making 12...count them TWELVE burp cloths, I pretty much worked out all the kinks and they don't look half bad! Yay me!

Don't you just love these!??

 I used a great tutorial from Buttercream and a Sewing Machine. The only change I made to her tutorial was I didn't round my corners...because I liked the look of a rectangle better.

I chose to make mine using regular Cotton fabric that I had from when my oldest son was a baby and a large towel that I picked up from Ross for $7. I love the color combos of the western/farm fabric and the blue towel. Since all the fabrics have some black color in them, I decided to use black thread to tie everything together and provide some cohesion.

After cutting off ribbing and hems I was able to get 12 burp cloths out of a large towel. Mine are all slightly different sizes because I wasn't thinking through how to divide my towel evenly (and my hubby wasn't home so I couldn't pick his brain like I normally do), but honestly it doesn't really matter. They still all function the same!

I chose to use the same fabric on the reverse as I did on the applique. For the applique I applied Heat and Bond to the wrong side of a scrap piece of fabric and then traced on my letter backwards onto the paper backing of the Heat and Bond...this meant when it was cut out the letter would be facing the right way. I then followed the instructions from the package and ironed my letters on to the towel.

I chose to then use a zig-zag stitch to really secure the letters since I assume these will be washed a bazillion times!

As you can see, my stitching is far from perfect...I probably chose the worst shaped letter for a beginning sewer! Following curves was NOT easy! I also couldn't make up my mind on which stitch I liked best, so they are all a little different.

All in all I really enjoyed making these, despite all the headaches of learning something new! Now I think I am going to use the same fabrics to make a set of onsies for pictures (so I can practice appliques some more!) and I want to make a baby blanket for the little man! I am so excited to be finally making some progress learning to sew!