Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Bitty bitty bow tie onesie


Hello, Cute!  
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to make her a bow tie onesie like one she had seen on Etsy for her son's first birthday.  I had never made a bow tie before, but I gave it a whirl and was pretty pleased with the results. 

I have several friends having babies, and guess what they are getting as a gift? Yep!

Here's the how-to: 

Cut  a 9" x 5" rectangle of fabric and of medium-weight iron-on interfacing. 
Iron the interfacing to the fabric.

Cut  2"x 5" pieces of fabric and interfacing. Iron interfacing to fabric.

Fold the large rectangle, wrong sides in, length-wise 1.5" from both sides. One side will slightly overlap the other. Press in place.
Fold the small rectangle 1/2" length-wise from both sides. One side will mostly overlap the other. Press in place.


Fold the large rectangle's width 2.5" on each side. One side should slightly overlap the other.

Pinch your bow-tie into your desired  shape. I like the "3-bump" look (I coined that name just now!). If you check out some bow ties for sale on the web, you'll see several ways of doing your pinch. 

Now, wrap your small folded rectangle around the middle, being careful to maintain the folds you created. Pin it in place close and tight. You will have extra. Trim the excess close to the pin.

Hand-sew the seam with a with a whip-stitch. It helps to leave the pin in place for this.


Arrange the tie where you'd like it to sit. I added buttons to mine because I had some that matched so well. I was excited to find that I also had matching thread, thanks to my box of thread I got in a grab-bag from Pick Your Plum, one of my favorite places to trade money for goodies. 

Pin the tie in place in the middle and on both sides. Hand sew in place. You don't need to sew more than about 1/4 inch of stitching  in each place. Make it good and strong, though, because you can guarantee its future owner will grab and pull.


 I made the little shoes last week using a pattern from schwinandschwinarchives.blogspot.com. 

Now my gift is ready to go!