little feet, big sky

A couple of months ago, I wandered into a Pottery Barn Kids and saw these adorable onesies. They were plain white and had a single cute embroidered shape on each – a yellow duck, an orange giraffe, etc. I picked one up to see the price and nearly died of sticker shock: $28 for a single 0-3 months onesie!

After picking myself up off the floor, I put it back with disdain; hell, I could make that! So what if I’ve never embroidered anything real before? Life is for learning, right?

I ordered Sublime Stitching ($14) by Jenny Hart from Amazon, swung by a local Joann’s for a few handfuls of DNC embroidery floss and an embroidery hoop, picked up some cheap onesies from Target, pulled out my old sewing box and got down to business.

Of course my first one was a bit of a botch, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it. T-shirt material is a slight pain to work with – if you stretch it just a little too much on the hoop, your threadwork with sort of crumple inwards when you take it off the hoop. And if it’s not stretched enough, then you have this hill/valley up/down thing going on every time you push or pull the needle through. In the book, Hart mentions using stabilizer to avoid this, but cautions on the use of readily-available iron-on stabilizer. She mentioned that an older technique was to use tissue paper, which I tried, but it kept tearing on me. In a desperate pinch, I grabbed a nearby tissue, folded it in half and used that – voila! it worked like a charm. I think it’s just soft enough to be a little flexible not to tear so easily.

• Buy the book, Sublime Stitching, from Amazon. ($14)
• Or, order patterns, kits and more from sublimestitching.com.
• Order floss and hoops online from Joann.com, or visit your local Joann’s.
• Pick up cheap onesies from Target (5/$10), or organic sweatshop-free onsies from American Apparel ($14).
• Make a cup of tea & get started. :-)