More Burp Cloths

I found this picture of some burp cloths I made a few years ago for a baby gift and thought I would add them to the one I posted last week.  These were a little simpler as I only bound the edges with a fabric strip.  They were for a momma with a silly sense of humor.  You really can create something fitting to the personality of your friends.  Tina recently posted pictures on Facebook of some darling ones she made with jungle animals and ruffled edges.  I hope these inspire you to try some for your next baby gift.

My posts have been less frequent in the past couple of weeks.  Life has been on a crazy-busy schedule with some travel and a long term project on my work table.  I'm hoping to get cracking again after spring break.  Watch for my Bag of the Week post coming tomorrow.  It will make you think of spring!

Simple Gifts

A friend (though not a close friend) has a new baby and I wanted to make a little gift to send to her.  I stitched up this burp cloth with the baby’s name and added some binding and a little ruffle to make it more special.  This couldn’t be easier.  First, I preshrunk the cloth diaper and trimmed the ends to make them square.  I embroidered the baby’s name on one end and bound the other end with a fabric strip.  I made a ruffle and sewed it to the end with the name and then covered the seam with another fabric strip (these strips were cut on the straight of grain).  One trick I have adopted when sewing trim strips like this is to use a decorative stitch to do the final stitching.  In this case I used a serpentine stitch which easily catches both front and back edges of the trim strip without having to worry too much about what is going on underneath.

My friend Kathy once talked to me about the obligation that comes with receiving gifts.  She notes that sometimes a gift is not worth receiving because the gratitude that the giver expects in return is emotionally not worth it.  Or sometimes the recipient is an acquaintance where an elaborate gift would be inappropriate, might even make them uncomfortable.  Other times the situation doesn’t warrant a big gift.  I am always on the lookout for small, simple gifts for those times that you want to tell someone you are thinking about them.    I would love to start a dialog here and have you share ideas for simple but lovely gifts for these occasions, babies, weddings, hostess gifts.  Please share in the comments section.