Christmas Tree Tee and Matching Hair Clip

OK. Even though I'm supposed to be wrapping presents, addressing Christmas cards and a million other things, I'd much rather fool around in my sewing room. I just LOVE to rummage through my scrap bins and play, play, play. To say that I'm like a kid in a candy store doesn't even begin to explain the exhilaration. Do you feel this way too?

Yesterday, I indulged myself in this little brainstorm...

I made a patchwork Christmas tree and appliqued it to a onesie for Maddy. It just wasn't enough "cute," so I went the extra mile and made a matching hair accessory.

I'm kind of making fun of myself here as "cutesy" isn't totally my style. But every now and then I get bitten by the cute bug, and you know, it works on an 11-month-old.

I wish I could have gotten a better shot of Maddy in the shirt but it's really tough to chase a moving target with a camera. 

I don't have many pictures of my process, but I'll try to give you a quick "how-to" in case you want to make these for a small fry in your life.

Christmas Tree Onesie or T-Shirt

I started out by sewing three different scraps of coordinating green fabric strips together. Each strip was 2.5" long and 6" wide (but you could eliminate a step by making them exactly 4" wide). I then measured 4" across the bottom and made a little mark at each end. Then at the top of the block, I found the center point (2") and made a little mark. I then used my rotary cutter to cut out my tree on the angle, just connecting my marks. Does this make sense? I'm sorry if it's confusing. Hopefully the photo will help.

After cutting out the little tree, I folded each edge of the triangle over about 1/8 of an inch and used my glue stick to secure.

I trimmed the corners and applied fray check.

Next step is to make the trunk. I used a tiny scrap of brown kona cotton and cut it about 1 1/2" by 1". I then folded the raw edges about an 1/8 of an inch and glue-sticked around the sides and bottom.

Again - trim the corners and apply fray check.

I figured out where on the onesie I wanted the tree and trunk and applied a bit of glue stick to the back to hold the pieces in place while I sewed.

Then I took the onesie over to my machine, unbuttoned the bottom and pulled it onto the machine's free arm so that I was only sewing the top layer. I then edge-stitched all the way around the tree. I did the same for the trunk using brown thread.

I thought the tree needed a topper so I make a simple grosgrain ribbon bow and glue-gunned that to the top.

That's it on the tee. It's really very simple.

Now for the hair clip.

Christmas Tree Hair Clip

I used a double prong clip and glue-gunned a 4" strip scrap of brown ribbon all the way around like so...

I applied Fray Check to the raw edges of the ribbon.

The next step was to make the tree triangle and another bow topper.

I used the same fabric stiffening method that I did for my embellished clothespins. I just mixed equal parts white craft glue and water in a bowl, then brushed that onto a scrap of fabric and allowed to dry for about 40 minutes.

Then I cut out a tree triangle about 1 1/2" wide at the bottom. I simple glue-gunned that and a little bow to the top of the hair clip and that was it.

I promised Christmas-y, crafty cute, didn't I?

So now I must take a short blogging break and finish my laundry (it's been piling up for quite some time), get those Christmas cards out and finish up the wrapping. I'll be back in a few days once I've crossed some things off my "to do" list.

Hope you're enjoying this wonderful season!