Those long-awaited baby gifts

At last I can show you those baby gifts. You'd think it was some big deal or something, the way I've been leading you on about these things.

It all started with the food bag I made for the baby. I just wanted something nicer than a ziplock baggie to keep the spoon, bib, and baby food jars together in the diaper bag.

Of course, once that was made I decided we needed to improve on the baggie that was holding the diapers. I thought the diaper case should match the feed bag. So this is what developed and has become the baby gift we're giving everyone this year:







Why, why, why did these gifts take me so long? It took a while to develop and perfect the pattern. (And of course, the proto I made the baby still doesn't have it's velcro dots because the cobbler's children don't have shoes, right?) Both bags are fully lined with muslin, and the diaper case has a canvas interfacing to help it keep its shape, so there are many, many little pieces of fabric to be cut and pieced together. Plus the embroidery, clipping and pressing the curves on the diaper case, finding time to go all the way downtown to buy the velcro dots, then getting all the way across town to buy shipping boxes, and finding time to stand in the endless line at the post office. Whew!

But I'm working ahead now, and I have lots of these things cut out and started sewing. The goal is to have the diaper cases made so that I have just the embroidery and food sacks to sew when a baby is born. Hopefully it will save a little time and the recipients won't be potty trained by the time their baby gifts arrive.