Sewing For Baby, Part 3: Clothes

One of the best parts of having a little girl is all the cute outfits. There are cute outfits for boys, but the selection is nothing like what is available for little girls. From skirts and dresses to rompers and jeans, little girls can wear anything. The problem is that all of these cute outfits can add up to a budget nightmare. So what's a frugal parent to do? Well there is always the garage sale option, and craigslist, and even Ebay. These can all be great places to get cute clothes cheap. The biggest problem I've found with these is that I have to go through a bunch of stuff that I don't want to find something I like. To say I am picky about what my daughter wears would be an understatement. This is where sewing your own comes in handy.

All the major pattern companies have patterns for baby clothes. You can go to their websites and figure out which patterns you like and then watch the sales at your local fabric store. I find that mine generally have at least one brand of pattern on sale every couple of weeks and they rotate through the brands. By being a little patient I was able to get a ton of baby patterns for $0.99-$1.50 each. You can also wait for fabric and notions to go on sale and get everything for a cute baby outfit for half price. The other thing to watch is the remnant bin. All fabric stores have them, these are the bolt ends and the scraps "too small to save". The fabric in the remnant bin is perfectly good fabric, there is just less than 1 yard of it so you can buy it at half price. Since most baby clothes take 1 yard or less of fabric this is a great option. The outfit above was made from a 1/2 yard of fabric I found in the remnant bin. I had to get rather creative with the pattern placement (make sure you follow the grain line and print direction if you want it to look right) and there wasn't enough for the lining, but I was able to pull it off. Unless you looked at the inside or read this post you would never know that the outfit is lined with muslin instead of matching fabric.

One of the other nice things about making your own baby clothes is that it is probably your best bet at getting cute boy clothes. You can pick a fabric you like and combine it with a fairly simple pattern and get something that is both adorable and boyish. This is a great option for all of you who complain about the lack of good boy clothes. All it takes to get custom clothes is a good pattern, a sewing machine and some time. Also, just because the first outfit takes you forever don't assume that all outfits will. The first time I made this pattern took every free moment for a full week. The second time only took about 4 hours worth of naps.

These patterns are more complicated, if you have a girl there are some dresses that can be made in under an hour. Please consider sewing for your children. You never know, their favorite outfit might well be something that you make yourself. I know I always loved the clothes my mom made me (we won't discuss some of the vocabulary I may have picked up while she was doing so). ;-)