A Crafting Trifecta!

Apparently I've had more time on my hands lately than the other posters to this blog! But I made one more thing today that I thought I'd share with y'all. It's another easy, yet cute baby gift: monogrammed onesies!

These two are for twins (TWINS!) Sophie and Addison who were born last week. They were five weeks early, but in good shape, both weighing in at almost 6 1/2 lbs!

So all you need for this craft is some good quality onesies (I like Old Navy & Carter brands...I hate Gerber onesies) and some very basic embroidery knowledge. I drew my letters with tailor's chalk first, then embroidered them with a chain-stitch (at least I think that's what it is called.) I'll do my best to describe it: Poke your thread up through the fabric, pull it all the way through, then poke the needle back down through the same hole. Pull until the thread is almost all the way though, until it kind of looks like a little teardrop, but stop when there's maybe a half inch of thread still looped on the front of the fabric. poke your needle back up through the fabric, and thread your needle through the loop of thread still on top of the fabric from your last stitch. Pull it fairly tight (you still want it to kind of be teardrop-shaped) then stick the needle back down through the second hole, making a new loop. Repeat as many times as it takes for this to make sense. You'll end up
with lots of little loops making a chain.

On the arm holes I did a little crosshatch thing on the "S" onesie, then a alternating straight stitch on the "A" one. I made one of these for my daughter when she was a baby and did some stitching on the neckline, only to realize that babies have no neck so you can't see the cute neckline while they're actually wearing it. So now I just stick to sleeves. If you're doing a long-sleeved onesie, be careful to stretch the wrist hole out after you stitch it, and before you tie the thread off. If you are making it for a chubby baby, those wrist holes need to be able to stretch to accommodate big fat wrists! (I think I learned that one on my own daughter, too!)

That's about it...a nice personalized gift that you can be sure no one else will be giving the new baby!