And the last baby thing!

This was actually the first baby thing I made, but I wanted to wait to post it until my friend got it in the mail, so it would be a surprise for her.

The baby swaddler I made is another pattern from Mamma Can Do It, and was picked out by my friend.  But the fabrics were a surprise!  She told me that she likes orange and grey, so I went over to Hawthorne Threads to shop.   I love it that you can search by color on the site.  I started from orange, aiming to find an orange and grey that went together.  But then this happened*:

Both these fabrics are from Mo Bedell's Full Moon Lagoon line - up top is Coral Garden in Purple, and below is Bubbles in Orange (apparently no longer in stock).  I love purple, pink and orange together, and hoped my friend would too - and it turns out she does!  So here's the swaddler:

{front}

{back}

{open}

The "wings" of the swaddler open and close with velcro.  You slip the baby inside and then wrap it up nice and tight.  Sadly, I don't have anything around here even vaguely baby-shaped, so do visit the website to see it in action!

This was such a fun little pattern to make up.   Really the only thing I did differently was to notch my outside curves rather than clip them like the pattern says.

The velcro isn't sewn on until the swaddler is complete.  At first I wasn't sure why this was so - why the velcro wasn't sewn on first as you'd do with a bag.  But then I realized that it's going to get opened and closed a lot and needs the stability of both layers of fabric.  I did something a little new here - instead of pinning the velcro to the fabric, I used a product I'd recently read about and purchased:  Roxanne Glue Baste-It.  Six little dots on each piece of velcro held it nicely while I stitched.  I'm really glad I bought this stuff!

The top and bottom of the swaddler are sewn separately, and then sewn together right side out:

I considered changing it so the seam allowance would be on the inside, but then decided it tied in with the topstitching that goes all the way around the edges and did it as written.  See?  I can follow directions when I feel like it!

So that's it for the baby stuff!  I had a great time making all these baby gifts, but now I'm ready to get back to adult sewing for myself!  I've really had the knitting bug lately too - I've finished a sweater I never even blogged about, and have started two new ones! 

* I apologize for the fuzziness of a lot of these pictures.  It was extremely overcast when I was taking them and I just couldn't get my camera to take a good picture for the life of me!  Someday I'll get a new one . . .