Friday, December 18, 2009

Flannel Burp Cloths

Burp cloths, burp rags, swipers - whatever you call them, they're pretty handy when you have a little one that is an urper, and they all tend to urp for a while at least. I used the heck out of plain prefold diapers for burp cloths and they work well. But I found some fun flannel printed ones that I used as my "goin' to town" burp cloths. (For those of you who aren't country folk, you save your nice stuff for trips to town.)

Thanks to this tutorial at Paper Dolly Girl, I was inspired to make some flannel burp rags and I was very pleased with how they turned out. As I noted in my post on how to make your own taggie blankets and embellished burp rags, I cruise the reminant bins at Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby pretty much every time I go and pick up anything that catches my eye. Because of this habit, I tend to let the piece of fabric dictate the size of my final project. That is, I'd rather have a some bigger and smaller burp rags than have them all uniformly sized and a big pile of scraps. (Not that there's anything wrong with scraps!)

My method also differed in that I used flannel on both sides, and I stitched down the flannel in the middle. Some of my scraps were a bit short, and I didn't want them migrating around in the wash. I also sewed some scraps together for the middle piece. Initially I was concerned that the seam might feel lumpy between a sleeping baby's face and a loving adult's shoulder but I could barely feel the seam.

I was so pleased with how these turned out! I will be giving them as gifts for sure, and I also listed some in my Etsy shop (with more to come) if you'd like to give a special tiny one the gift of handmade flannel burp cloths but don't have the time or sewing skills.

For more frugal ideas, visit Life as Mom. You can also check out my handmade gifts section and see what I'm making for Christmas if you'd like!

1 comment:

Meredith said...

Yours came out great! Those are some lucky babies (and parents) who get them as gifts. I wrote up basic instructions to inspire sewers after all I saw for swipers were instructions beginning "Take one pre-made cloth diaper..." I love all the cheerful flannels you chose.