My "Baby Box" and ideas for constructing your own box.

 Hello,

I hope you are all having a nice and productive autumn season this year, even if the year has been quite different from expected.

 

Staying at home has really given me so much inspiration and motivation to do sewing and sew stuff that has been unfinished for years.

At least for me seeing my fabrics more often than normally gives rise to countless ideas to do and this baby box idea has been in my head for a while.

I have a lot of different jerseys and colleges I've collected and saved during the years. Some of the fabrics are even older than I am. So I decided it is time to finally do something about my evergrowing stash and a box of baby clothes is just a perfect project to use all the scrap jerseys. This box is far from finished, but I guess this is a good start and I couldn't wait any longer to do a blog post about it.

At the moment I've done:

Four shirts, a body, a zippered one piece, two rompers, two trousers. And currently I am knitting a cardigan and planning on sewing couple of bibs later.

How to construct a baby box?

1.  Go through your jearsey stash and use your imagination:

For me it was all about stash busting my jersey and college fabrics that are filling my storage boxes. I save quite small pieces of leftover fabrics and try to imagine them as baby clothes while cutting my original project. My stash consists of mainly green and blue fabrics and that is the reason for a boyish color-themed clothes. I've done so many jersey/college clothes for my brothers and saved the leftovers.

But you can choose what you want. More hot pink or neutral colored clothes? Whatever is in your stash or who is the recipient of the box: do you plan to give it as a baby shower gift or do it for your own baby.

On the left are my two favourites. The green striped shirt I found in my stash and I had to invent a way to finish it. I had too small pieces left for the front panel. I just sewed two pieces together and cut the missing front panel. The shirt is a bit short, but the color is just sooooo cute.

I love stripes and dots and animal prints more than single colors. 

2. What does the baby need?

Ask the-mom-to-be. Has she already a closet full of warm winterwear, but would love to have some light summer clothes or the other way round. Does she have colors that she likes/dislikes. Are there clothes that she has, but wants similar in different sizes. The baby will grow out of the smallest sizes very quickly, so better to make them look extra cute (IMO)

For me it was also important to use the fabrics that can be washed in 60 degrees celsius. Some moms like to use baby pants and other prefer rompers (with open feet/closed feet). Everyone has different preferences. And some babies just tend to kick off all the socks in just a matter of few seconds.

I had in mind to make those small sizes 50-62cm, because I used the stash fabric. But many moms will probably apprecieate even the sizes 68-74cm.

3. Scrolling through the pattern pages

I love free sewing patterns, don't we all? But there are just so many different styles and sizes. And that is the reason for planning, what are you really looking for to make:

1. Certain sizes?

I planned ahead that I wanted small trousers with side seams

So I made two size 56cm trousers. The blue and white is a leftover from a t-shirt I made for myself probably in fifth grade and the green-violet ones are from an old stash fabric.

2.Certain fabrics that require a specific type of pattern. (What I mean is: you can only make baby rompers from this fabric - kind of thing.

 I couldn't think of any other way to use my elephant

fabric. I bought it from a localfabric store prbably close to fifteen years ago, when they used to have these 2x/year sales: "fill up a bag for 10euros" and there was a elephant themede college. I actually made two of these, but the other was a bit large so it is now in the storage (again)

3. Certain clothes? 

I like baby rompers, the very traditional ones. And I wanted to something else than just the basic white or yellow one.

I made some clothes from a magazine I've subscribed to, they had a pretty good pattern for rompers.The green one is from that pattern. The striped one I found in my stash, I had to add additionalt pieces to the legs, because initially they were unevenly cut. I tried to make as little extra seams as I could.

Don't be afraid to try something you haven't already tried. For me it was german patterns, that I found for free. But Google translate is just amazing and free dictionaries are so helpful. There are even nice japanese baby patterns to try, if you are up for a challenge (I haven't tried those yet :) )