Apple of My Eye

A Touch of Kawaii

Hello again, and welcome to our {belated} next installment of Apple a Day from Janome. Today’s edition is in the form of a quick and easy baby burp cloth, Kawaii style. Kawaii is a word of Japanese origin, often used to describe something as cute or ‘darling.’ Just take a tour of Google images and you will find endless renditions of animated, illustrated, stitched or stuffed, playfully adorable creatures. Typically, cute faces are given to animal or inanimate objects. These faces usually have wide-set eyes and either a nose or mouth, but usually not both. A kawaii apple seemed a perfect little embellishment for a quick baby gift. A burp cloth is one of those things that new parents can never have enough of. Flannel makes a nice soft baby head rest (on a special someone’s shoulder), but cotton diapers can be stitched on too. Here are some simple directions.

Super- Easy Burp Cloth

Materials:

• Flannel for burp cloth (approximately 20″ x 24″ wide)
• Contrasting Flannel for patch (5″ x 8″ wide)
• Scrap of fabric for apple
• Fusible webbing for applique
• Threads of choice for sewing and embellishing
• Stabilizer for embroidery (we used a tear-away type)
• MC15000 for embroidery of words (optional)

The finished size of this cloth is 8 x 20

Step 1 – Creating the Embellishment

The finished burp cloth will be 8″ wide. Imagine that the 24″ wide flannel is divided into three, 8″ wide sections. An 8″ wide x 5″ high patch of contrasting flannel will be centered in the lower half of the centre section. Stitch this patch in place with a zig zag stitch.

Step 2

Create your embroidery message of choice. We used “Apple of my eye.” Hoop the patched flannel with your stabilizer of choice. Embroider the message.

Step 3

Apply fusible webbing to the back of red fabric. Cut out an apple shape. Free motion stitch eyes and a mouth on the apple  to give it a face.

Step 4

Fuse the apple to the flannel patch. Free motion stitch a stem and leaf as desired.

Step 5

Applique the apple in place. We used a blanket stitch. The embellishment is finished.

Step 6 – Finishing the Burp Cloth

Trim all excess threads and remove excess stabilizer from behind the embroidery.
With the burp cloth face down, fold the 8″ sections to the left and right of the centre section, to overlap behind that section, pressing each fold line. (NOTE: you may choose to fold under a small hem on the outer most raw edge of the long side. If so – please adjust folding so as to allow the finishing stitches to catch and secure all layers of the cloth. In our case, we used a selvedge edge, and ho hem was necessary.) The cloth is now three layers thick, with an embellished centre panel on the front.

Turn the cloth over, embellished side up. Press flat. Stitch a zig zag stitch along each long side to hold the folds in place. Finish the top and bottom edges of the cloth with zig zag stitches. This completes the burp cloth – easy-peasy, and oh-so-cute!

(This post, set for September 28, did not appear until 9/29. It has been reset for 9/28 to follow the September calendar. We apologise for any confusion. : )