Welcome Guest Blogger Julie Griffey

When Julie offered to do a guest post for IHAN® I went over to her website and saw she had some great tutorials.  There are so many people that I know who are expecting grandchildren soon that I thought this tutorial would be a great one to share.

Julie Griffey from Machine Embroidery Geek

I am very thrilled this week to be a guest blogger here at I Have a Notion®. (Thanks, Kelly!)  My name is Julie and I have a blog as well with a slightly different focus: machine embroidery and applique. You can check it out at  Machine Embroidery Geek. 

Today I am going to show you how to make a cute little applique baby onesie with a little chick design.  I have done a bit of applique on baby onesies in the past, and while it is a bit challenging to stitch within such a tight space, it's actually not as difficult as you might think.

For this project, I was inspired by the piece of fabric I purchased the other day. The fabric has a dainty little chick footprint design on it.  I thought it would be cute to digitize a little chick applique and then use the chick footprint as the appliqué fabric.

I begin the applique process by stabilizing the design area with an iron-on cut-away stabilizer fused to the inside of the garment.  Next I mark where the center of the design should land on both the inside and the outside of the onesie.

Next, I hoop a piece of sticky back stabilizer, scour around the edges with a pin to remove the peel away paper and mark the center of the hoop on the exposed, sticky stabilizer.  Then I turn the onesie inside-out and stick it onto the exposed sticky-back stabilizer, lining up the center point on the inside of the onesie to the center of the hoop marked on the exposed sticky-back stabilizer.

Now it's time to start stitching.  The first layer of stitching forms the chick's legs and then the placement line for the appliqué piece.  When the machine pauses I lay down the applique fabric piece over the placement line that has been stitched out.  I don't spray any adhesive onto the onesie, I simply lay that applique fabric that has been  fused to a piece of Heat-and-Bond Lite (Kelly would use Mistyfuse to keep the onsie soft) onto the front of the onesie over the placement line. 

The next layer of stitching tacks down the appliqué piece to the onesie.   When this is complete, I remove the hoop from the machine and with appliqué scissors, trim the appliqué fabric as close as possible to the tack down line without (of course) cutting a hole in the onesie.

Once the hoop is put back on the machine, I start the next round of stitching which puts the final satin stitching around the chick shape and creates a little eye for the chick.

One important note... when I am embroidering on any type of knit fabric, I am sure to use a needle that is suitable for stitching on knits.  Needles designed to work with knits do not pierce the fabric, but instead push their way through the voids within the knit.  So make sure you are working with an appropriate needle before starting any stitching on a baby onesie.

I hope you like this and it is helpful for those of you who want to make stylish onesies for babies.  If you are interested in the chick design, please contact me though my blog:  Machine Embroidery Geek . 

THANK YOU JULIE for the excellent tutorial!   

Smiles,
Kelly