Yes I am!  I DIY’d my own burp cloths!!  I never thought I’d be a person to make my own baby things…but I am the kind of person that sees something and thinks…”I can make that.”  And then I end up spending about twice the amount of money on supplies and spend days making it.  These were no exception.  They proved not to be cost efficient nor time efficient, like most of my projects.

It didn’t help matters that I found this great gauze fabric!  I couldn’t help but buy a few yards of each, which I am glad I did because it it was no longer available the next time I checked.

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I also had these old white t-shirts, which I figured would be perfect of an absorbent middle layer.

I started by cutting up the t-shirts into the largest rectangles that I could.  Making a cardboard template was helpful getting them all the same size and and shape.  If I free-handed it, I’d probably end up with odd trapezoid shapes.

Using the cardboard as my guide, I found it easiest to trace, and then cut.

With my t-shirts and fabrics cut, it was time to assemble.

In order for the cloths to end up with the pattern facing out on either side and the t-shirt absorbancy layer in the center, the 2 layers of gauze need to have the patterns facing each other, and the t-shirt layer on one side of the gauze.  It doesn’t matter which side.  My sewing machine liked it best when the t-shirt material was on the bottom.  My first one though I pinned together with the t-shirt material on the top.  It still worked, the sewing machine just liked to grab the gauze a bit.

With the edged pinned, I worked by way around the rectangle making sure to leave a 4-5 inch unsewn section in order to turn them inside out.

Like the black thread? :)  I was sewing late at night and didn’t have cream or white.  Once flipped, the t-shirt was in the middle with the flower pattern showing on either side.  I threw it on the ironing board to crisp-en up the edges.

After ironing it out flat, I folded it into thirds and ironed creases to give myself a nice line to stitch securing the layers together.

As the first one, I thought I would try out a fancy stitch.

Can you see it?  There are little leaves…but it look a long time, especially when you consider 3 rows, on 6 clothes…it’s way too much time.  And by this point I was already embarrassed with how much time I had spent on these.  So the rest have straight lines.

And also because this was the first, I thought they would look nice with some binding hem along the edges.

But turns out that 1 pack of binding hem was $2.99 and at 4 yards only made it completely around 1 cloth.  Obviously I didn’t do the math before I bought it because I only bought two packs.  I decided I felt fine without it, it took too long anyway, and at this point I was at the end of day 2.  So 1 of each pattern got a fuscia edge, and the rest got the classic zig zag stitch.

Once I opted for the straight stitch over the floral leaf stitch and the zig zag stitch over the binding hem, the pace sure did start to pick up.

I kind of like the softness of the edge without the binding hem.

I kind of love them…I hope she loves spitting up on them!  And each time she does I can remember the 2 days I spent making 6 burp cloths!!