Isabel's Singlets

On the 20th September 2011, My beautiful sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Isabel Grace. I had been waiting to find out the sex of the baby before I created something for her, and had the idea of these singlets in my head for a while. I had planned to make them for some of the other little people in my life, but thought who better to make the first ones for, but my first niece...

I bought a five pack of 000 pink, white and grey singlets (as she was a tiny 5pound 11ounces when she was born, so hopefully they are the right size for summer) and visited my local Lincraft for some floral quilting material. I also pulled out a few off cuts I had from some quilts I had made. After washing everything, I took the opportunity of a labour day long weekend and got started.

I had the two flower designs planned for a while and after looking at a friends blog

(http://alittleredribbon.blogspot.com/2010/09/little-butterfly-shirt-tutorial.html) decided to do a butterfly version as well. The first thing I wanted to do was get everything ready, ironed, so once I got going, I wouldn't have to stop.

I started by drawing the shapes that I wanted, onto an iron adhesive and ironed each onto a piece of material, cutting it out ready to iron onto the singlets.

I then positioned each one and ironed them into place. I had decided that I wanted to put little sleeves on each one and had originally planned on doing them both the same, using a chiffon material, but found some lovely lace while shopping and changed one of them to have a lace trim. I pinned the lace and chiffon into place and ironed each one, to try and keep it neat for sewing. After the sleeves/trim and flowers were sewn on, I sewed some buttons in the centre of each flower to finish. I put some tiny wings on the back of the butterfly singlet. I just used some chiffon and tied a bright pink ribbon on it to bunch, and then sewed it onto the back.

Below are the finished singlets. I made three in total. They were so fun to make, that I am already starting the ones I originally planned for Christmas, as well as a boy version for my nephews birthday.