I'm back with baby clothes! Not for me (thank goodness)

All's well that ends well. It has taken me forever to get back to sewing and blogging but here I am again. Mum made a complete recovery which amazed us all but left us forever grateful for her strength of will and character, as well as the medical care she got while in hospital. Then, a friend decided to have a baby (or will, in May) so I got to go to the baby shower and so I made some of the cutest clothes imaginable - baby clothes.

Over many years, I have used this McCall's pattern 9331 to make the newborn sized clothes whenever friends of mine have babies. I think the first time I used it was for my nephew who is now 22 years old! I love the way the feet on the pants stick up and the hat is just the cutest. I figure the parents can put a t-shirt on the baby and then dress it in the little jacket that is called a kimono on the pattern.

I went shopping for the fabric with my mother after she had got out of hospital and she suggested we go for the pink (a little peachy actually) and blue flannelettes and mix them up, since we didn't know if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. I figure a baby doesn't know what colour it is wearing so it would only be the parents who might object and these parents are pretty relaxed about that sort of gender-biased colour thing. And if they did mind the colours, they could give away the outfit that was mostly the "wrong" colour. I had also, in the past, made yards and yards of flannelette seam binding in white and I decided to use some of that up on this project.

Since the pieces are so small, I had lots of options in cutting. I decided to make the bottoms of the pants feet in the opposite colours and to find matching bears for each. I chose the sleeping bears for the blue feet and the awake bears for the pink. You might have to click on the photo to see the large for detail.

In this view of the inside of the pants, you can see I decided to flat fell all the seams for a nice smooth finish. I also used the white flannelette seam binding to encase the elastic around the ankles. The top of the pants will be elasticized also. Pretty cute already.

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to physically manage flat felling the seam that made a tube out of the pants leg (and the jacket arm) as they were going to be so small. But I did! It was tight going but I managed to sew into the leg and turn around at the bottom and sew my way out again.

Here's a view of the jacket. I made the sleeves out of the contrasting fabric colour. All the seams are enclosed in modified flat fells. The jacket closes by using a tie on the inside and then a tie on the outside, after the front flap is folded shut.

Here is a view of both pairs of pants, both jackets and the hat, after completion. You can see the feet - so cute! And the hat is two layers - one pink and one blue - so it is reversible depending on the sex of the baby.

Finally, one last view of both outfits and the hat. Adorable.