Embellished Baby Onesie Tutorial 1

~ Embellished Onesies ~

I'm getting a little care package together for a friend and thought I'd share some new ideas and a quick easy tutorial on how to fancy up a onesie with ruffles!

{Crochet Embellishments}

I came up with a new crochet flower, butterfly, and heart pattern. I am especially excited about the little butterflies I made! I thought they would be a cute way to dress up a onesie so I took some flowers, added a little fabric button, and sewed them to the front on the onesie.

If you do this, make sure you sew down all around edges of the flowers as well. This will make washing easier and will help the flowers to lay flat.

I then added my little butterfly to the back of the onesie.

{Ruffle Bottom Onesie Tutorial}

And now for a little tutorial fun. This is quite easy to do and should only take you 30 minutes max!

Step 1. Measure the back/bottom of your onesie. I used 3 ruffles, so I measured in 3 different spots.

a. measure about an 1" above the leg seem. Mine was a size 3-6 month onsie and measured 7 1/4".

 b. Next, I measured right above the leg seem. The measurement was still 7 1/4".

 c. Last, measure just below that leg seem. Here, it measured 5".

Step 2. Cut out 3 strips of fabric. The width of each piece should be about 1 1/2" but you can make them smaller or bigger depending on your preference. The length of each piece should be 2X the measurement you took in Step 1. 

Piece a. 2x 7 1/4" = 14 1/2"

Piece b. 2x 7 1/4" = 14 1/2"

Piece c. 2x 5" = 10"

Step 3. Iron your strips of fabric or they will look like the strips pictured above! Yikes.
Step 4. Serge or use a zig-zag stitch on the long edges. This will keep the fabric from fraying.

Step 5. Begin with Piece a. Fold the short edge of the strip over twice and pin each edge to the side seems of the onesie. Place another pin in the center of the strip and onesie. There should be major gaps in fabric between the pins because this is how we will get our ruffle!

Step 6. You will sew down the middle of the strip. You can use a straight stitch or a zig-zag stitch. I chose to use a straight stitch.

As you sew, you will pull and stretch the onesie until your strip of fabric is tight against it. Sew all the way across the strip. When you are done sewing and the onesie is not being stretched, the strip of fabric should now be a ruffle!

Step 7. Sew the remaining fabric pieces to the onesie in the same manner.

*Note: When I first sewed my strips on and took a look, I was a little disappointed. The strips were a little crooked and I didn't like how far they were spaced apart. I took off the top and bottom strips of fabric and re-attached them to be a little closer to the purple strip in the middle.

And this is how it turned out the second time:

I think it looks much better with the ruffle strips over-lapping, don't you? That is all there is to it! Such a quick and easy way to dress up a onesie. You can add as many or as little ruffles as you'd like. I think lots of smaller sized ruffles would be cute too!