With a new nephew on the way this past summer, I knew that I wanted to make oodles and oodles of goodies for him to wear and to keep warm. A few weeks before his arrival, I decided that a wool bunting would be perfect for keeping him cozy and helping to stabilize his temperature outside of the womb.
I am a huge believer in the adage “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.” It is with this in mind that many of my sewing projects have come to be. I have an entire shelf of my sewing room devoted to wool sweaters from the thrift store that I have felted. I decided that instead of spending a few weeks knitting my nephew a bunting, I would use one of the felted sweaters and make it a sewing project instead.
Materials
Large piece of paper or parchment paper to cut out template
Measuring tape
Lightly felted sweater
Scissors
Sewing machine
Since I didn’t have a newborn handy for measuring and drawing my template, I used my newborn-sized Waldorf doll as a model.
The dimensions are as follows.
I placed the template on top of the sweater with the narrowest part of the bunting template at the bottom hem of the sweater.
Cut out the sweater fabric through both layers around the perimeter of the template. Once the pieces are cut out, place them right sides together. Line up your lines if your sweater has stripes.
Pin and stitch the two halves together using a 1/2 inch seam allowance and a very short stitch on your sewing machine.
Turn the bunting inside out.
This bunting as sized will fit up to the neck of a newborn, since they like to keep their legs all scrunched up.
As they grow and get older, they like to stretch out a bit. In that case, the bunting converts to a kick sack and leaves plenty of room for kicking those little legs.
And once your baby has grown out of his bunting, feel free to pass it on to a beloved baby doll, so your baby can keep his own babies warm.
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Julia Daby is a Registered Nurse who lives happily with her husband and little boy in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. She enjoys crafts of all kinds, eating good food, reading, and being outdoors. Most important of all….she enjoys spending time with her family and friends. She has a small store on etsy where she and her twin share sewing and fiber tutorials to inspire creativity in other Mamas. She writes about life, family and creativity at Happiness Comes. She also can be found at Windfall Dolls, where she and her sister give away Waldorf inspired dolls to deserving little ones.