Ruffle Bum

I have always been taken by things that are small. Baby clothes are no exception. I was so excited to hear that friends of ours were having a baby... for the sake of having a baby, but also because I knew it would give me an excuse to make them something. I was even more excited when I found out it was going to be a girl! The only tough thing about it was picking out which pattern to use. I ended up going with an "It's so easy it's Simplicity" pattern (A1826).

If you need to make a Christmas gift for a baby, I definitely recommend this one. I had to stop myself from making 5 more and hoarding them away in the closet for my own future offspring.

The process was pretty simple - you need just a little bit of fabric, bias tape, and skinny elastic. There is elastic around each leg and the waist. The ruffles were easy to make - this is where I deviated from the pattern a little. The pattern suggested having a raw top edge on each ruffle and covering it with ribbon. I assume they proposed this because making a tube out of fabric and turning it around is time consuming, but I just made fabric tubes (by cutting long skinny strips of fabric, folding them hot-dog style with right sides together, and sewing along the long edge), turned them right side out, and used those to make my ruffles. That way the top edge was finished. You can see the gathering but I thought it looked better that way than with oddly placed ribbon along the top of each ruffle. Below you can see my stitching lines for each ruffle and how the bias tape was used to make a casing for the thin elastic around the waist.

Such a fun little project! Sorry I do not have a picture of a baby actually wearing the diaper cover... I will work on that!