i had to make a bonnet…

There’s plenty of “baby sewing” in the works around here, but I’m waiting on most of it until we find out if we’re having a boy or a girl. But after Jill posted her Peekaboo Bonnets last week, I was struck with a feverish need to sew a baby bonnet. It was pretty powerful, seriously. I immediately printed out the pattern and began looking through my stash for fabric. Jill’s versions were absolutely perfect in my opinion – I think her large vintage-y floral prints really suit the bonnet well, and I love how she used piping on both sides.

This print is Rose Bouquet from Joel Dewberry’s Heirloom collection, and I used a linen/cotton blend (Robert Kaufman Essex Linen in Natural) for the solid side.

The bonnet is fully reversible (two bonnets in one!), and I used packaged piping on both sides and made my own bias tape for the tie. The brim is interfaced to make it more sturdy. I did the final stitching by hand (where the band and brim meet on the solid side) since I knew there was no chance I could stitch in the ditch by machine and keep it invisible on both sides.

The pattern – Made by Rae’s Peekaboo Bonnet – was wonderful and everything came together really easily. It comes in eight sizes, all the way up to child’s large (age 6-8), but I think Lila may have missed her window of ultimate cuteness for wearing a bonnet like this. And I really wanted to make a baby size anyway. As luck would have it, an adorable seven month old lives right next door – she’s grown quite a bit since her swaddler modeling days back in January, and has the sweetest little giggle you’ve ever heard! I hope she likes her new bonnet with its tasty little strings – she figured out how to untie them within seconds, so we’ll see how much wear this thing actually gets…

And one last photo, just to show off that gorgeous Liberty quilt she was sitting on!

Read Full Post »

storybook woods

Lila and her dad have been “waterfalling” (as they like to call it) on Sundays. It sounds like a good time, and part of me would love to join in the fun, but you know what else sounds pretty great? Four hours to myself.

Here are the photos they sent me during my special alone time:

hiking at oneonta falls

lunch at horsetail falls

Most of my morning was spent listening to Cat Power and working on a little wool bonnet. I’ve been daydreaming about fall sewing since early July – probably because Lila is maxed out on summer clothes and the weather has barely been nice enough to wear them. It seems wrong to sew for fall now that the sun is finally shining, but my neighbor is expecting a baby girl mid-October and the shower is in a couple weeks. So, in keeping with the Posie theme, I made Alicia Paulson’s Storybook Woods Baby Bonnet – a cozy little hat for a fall baby.

The gray is a lightweight wool suiting from Joann’s. At first I balked at the price ($26.99/yard), but after doing some quick math I figured out that 3/8ths of a yard at 40% off comes out to pretty much nothing. Plus, there’s enough left over to cut two more bonnets. It would take a lot of mini marshmallows to get Lila into one of these, but I think it’d be awfully cute. We’ll see.

The lining is Moda Painted Flowers from the Sugar Pop collection. The ferns on the lining kind of mimic the embroidery, which is what sold me on the fabric.

The bonnet is reversible, too – a feature I always appreciate in a pattern. And the wool is so soft, I think it really could be worn either way.

I also like how the pattern has you sew down the seam allowances where the bonnet’s sides join the gusset – the top stitching on either side of those seams is a nice detail, I think:

The whole thing came together without a hitch, and I even learned some new embroidery in the process – the fly stitch (it’s the green fern-ish looking one).  It was my first time sewing with wool, too, which was a pleasure. Now that I’ve started sewing for fall, there may be no turning back….

Read Full Post »