Project 01-S - Baby Burp Cloths

Burp Cloths in progress.
(Blue one on the right is finished.,
and properly folded!

Wednesday evening after a day of computer work at school, I had just finished straightening in the sewing room and it was late.  But I needed to satisfy my sewing addiction and I didn’t want to stay up too late.  I needed something that would allow me to see some immediate progress.  Baby burp cloths to the rescue.

I had already done the preliminary work, so it was just going to be a quick sewing job.    

Yet let’s talk a minute about choosing a pattern for a baby burp cloth.  Should be very simple, right?  I had researched patterns for the cloths.  Did you know there is one website where a sewist has gathered 38 different burp cloth patterns?  My stars, how many ways can you sew fabric onto a cloth nappy so that a baby can spit on it?

After going through all 38 of the website links this sewist collected, I had already picked out my pattern and was planning to use my embroidery machine to put cute phrases on the cloths before sewing them together.    I had previously asked my friend how many she wanted.  She said a few.  I asked her to be more specific and she said five.  So I thought I would make five very cute embrodiered clothes.  No problem, right?

A couple of days earlier, I had gone to FIVE different stores before I found cloth nappies.  I had boiled them to make sure they were really pre-shrunk and that any residual chemicals used in their manufacture were gone.  I dried them.  I ironed them. (I REALLY ironed them.  Do you know how easy it is to stretch cloth nappies off grain if you are not careful?)  I cut the flannel and I pinned it in place.  I then set them aside for sewing on another day.

The next day I spent a couple of hours with my five month old great nephew.  It was an epiphany moment.  My friend did not mean five burp cloths.  She meant five HUNDRED.  You can only use those things one time before you have to get another one.  How much can a baby spit up?  And on top of that, why was I going to do beautiful embroidery for a baby to SPIT STINKY STUFF ON?  This was a nasty experience (Although my great nephew is perfect, his spit up leaves a lot to be desired!)

So this evening after straightening my sewing room, I went into production model.  My friend is getting a bunch of simple, simple burp cloths and they don’t have embroidery on them. (And my sister-in-law in Argentina is getting some to give her friends too!)  It may not be such a beautiful gift without embroidery, ribbons and bows, but at least it will keep that clabbered sticky stinky stuff off of her neck!  And that's what friends are for, isn't it? -- to protect other friends from clabbered sticky stinky stuff! (PS - The finished blue one in the picture is not my friends. It was for practice. She's having a girl!)