A baby gift!

Oh, this one was so much fun!  A former student and her husband were expecting a baby, and I'm told they wanted a dinosaur-themed nursery.  Unfortunately for them, it was apparently impossible to find girly dinosaur baby stuff.  And this, my friends, is why we sew!

Enter the stash....The dinosaurs on blue flannel in the background was a Black Friday purchase from a few years ago.  If I remember right, it was long enough ago that I intended it for toddler bedding.  Oops!  Well, now part of it became a crib sheet.  The dino flannel to the left was a thrift store find, and now it's a pack-n-play sheet (I stalked the baby registry to verify that they had or intended to purchase both a crib and a pack-n-play.)  Then the onesies were the really fun part. :)

People always give new parents newborn or 0-3 month clothing, so I figured that something a little bigger was a better plan.  I bought a three pack of plain white, short-sleeved onesies (Child of Mine brand - I think that's Carter's brand for Wal-Mart) in 3-6 month size.  Then I searched the internet for uncomplicated pictures of dinosaurs.  If I remember correctly, my google search was "free dinosaur stencil" - and I found these, which had been used for freezer paper stenciling on an art smock.  Awesome!  The blue and purple mottled prints were leftovers from the Christmas stockings I made for my sister-in-law and niece, and the pink is a fat quarter I found at JAF.

After printing out the patterns in several different sizes (this was totally not methodical - more trial and error), I traced the shapes onto the paper side of Heat-n-Bond Lite and then fused the adhesive to the fabric.  (Make sure to fuse it to the WRONG side of the fabric - I wasn't thinking and screwed up my first applique.)  Next, I cut out the shapes and then fused them to the onesies.  I wasn't sure whether I could get away without stitching them in place, but after consulting my online sewing group, I decided it would be better to stitch them down.  I didn't want to do satin-stitching on these, so instead I simply stitched a line around the shape, just inside the edges.  I also applied Fray-Check to the raw edges, just in case....I think these are hilariously cute, and I'm definitely going to make more in the future!