Yellow Striped Baby Bonnet

A family member recently had a baby. Actually, several family members have recently had babies, so there’s no shortage of babies to sew for around here. As a gift, I decided to make a bonnet for the little cutie.

I’d love to tell you that I went out and bought this fabric just for her and that I just sat down and put it together right then. Nope, not true. I bought this pattern and fabric when a friend of mine from high school had her first baby. That was probably ten years ago or so. Yeah, the pattern and fabric, all cut and ready to go, was sitting in a bag in a drawer for about a decade. Yup. That’s how I sew.

Anyway, last week I was inspired to actually sew the bonnet. I took the original pieces that I’d cut out (which were all of the striped fabric - no contrast? Amature!) and cut out some cute matching yellow pieces. I ditched the original yellow ribbon trim I’d purchased and the daisy buttons and decided to save them for another project. Digging through my wad of trim supplies, I came up with this lovely pink bias tape which was a perfect match.

While piecing the bonnet together, I realized that I’d neglected the part where I was supposed to add a ruffle to the front. I didn’t realize this until I had the whole thing nearly completed and turned right side out, so no ruffle for this bonnet. Once it was together though, it looked a little plain on the front. Hmmm. A ruffle would have been nice, go figure. So I had to get a little creative.

Sometimes when I try to get all fancy my projects go to hell in a handbasket. Luckily, this was not one of those times. I decided to stitch down the pink bias tape strap with some fancy star stitch my machine had. The tension was a little off, but as small of an area as it was, it’s not too noticeable to anyone but me. Now that I had the hang of the star stitch and tension, I switched the thread color back to pink and stitched around the brim of the bonnet. Ta-dah! 

And then my thread ran out. (son of a --). I only had a tiny bit left! 

Ok, don’t panic. Somewhere around here is a little yellow silk flower pin that my niece wore for all of my bridal showers. It’s the perfect size and I just saw it the other day. So I’m on a mission to find that little bugger because it would be perfect right there. But until I do, enjoy these lovely shots of a teddy bear wearing the yellow striped bonnet because I don't’ have a baby handy to model it for you.

Since it’s not perfect with the tension issues and lack of thread, I’ll be making a different one for the gift. Also the cat decided to take a nap on it so now it has to be washed before any babies get to sport it. Since I originally cut out the pattern in only the striped fabric, I still have plenty of those striped pieces to make another bonnet. I think I’ll contrast it with pink. And hopefully, I’ll even get around to it before baby turns ten.

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