Embroidered Onesies: Who Says Ponies Can’t be Teal?

This is our second Friday of onesie making how-to goodness. Last Friday we conquered personalized appliqués and today we dive into the world of embroidery. I’m embarrassed to say that I have had Jenny Hart’s Stitch It Kit since before it hit the shelves, hell I’m even thanked in the acknowledgements and I have never before the last few months tried my hand at the skill. Pregnancy will do strange things to a woman determined to have a wardrobe of cute crafty clothes for their child, plus I figured how hard can it be? I knew Jenny had written crystal clear instructions and from time to time given me personal quickie lessons as had my mother. I did after all use a whip stitch on the All Access Pass Badge Holder project in The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry so I was not totally clueless.

Let me start out by saying that Sublime Stitching carries tons of adorable embroidery patterns that would be just as cute on big girl clothes as they are on baby clothes. It’s hard not to go embroidery crazy with all the choices. Vickie loaned me her copy of Craft Pad and I started to go nuts eventually stopping at 6 onesies and 2 T-shirts for my nieces. It gets addictive and embroidery floss comes in so many pretty colors.

My first, and roughest attempt, was using Sublime Stitching vital organs patterns. My stitches got progressively better so Lil’ Whip will have some rough looking size 0-3 month onesies, they are better in the 3-6 month size and by the time he/she is in the 9 month range I had hit my stride.

1) Iron pattern onto clothing. Don’t use the steam or hold the iron there for too long so you can reuse your pattern several times.
2) Stretch your outfit into the embroidery hoop
3) Choose your stitch of choice and floss colors. I attempted several different stitches to start and eventually settled into a split stitch half way through my lungs.
4) Try the onesie on to make sure it is going to fit.


I cut my teeth on the vital organs and moved onto the Stitch Pad for round 2 and the larger sized onesies. Chris plays drums and his kit is orange so this onesie was a gift for him. It's ok to giggle at the Olan Mills picture of Chris in a suit playing drums and his polic officer brother in his uniform, we do.

The little rock-a-billy style onesie was a gift for mommy. I was getting better, but the lettering on True Love was pretty tricky and maybe a split stitch is not the right stitch for lettering? Suggestions anyone?


I think I was most proud of my teal horse onesie. By this point I started to realize the smaller your stitches the better. I also became more comfortable with switching out my floss colors more often, hence this rainbow pony magic.

For a brief moment I was worried about confusing Lil’ Whip on the way of the world, like the fact that there really is no such thing as a horse of a different color. But then I snagged a copy of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? By Eric Carle at the thrift store and right there in the center of the book was a picture of a blue horse and I felt better about things.


Tomorrow is my Austin baby shower and what are we doing you ask? Not tasting baby food or wrapping me with toilet paper, we are making onesies! We have 3 tables set up with paint, embroidery, stencils, iron-ons, fabric appliqués and more. The whole dang Austin Craft Mafia and then some should be here so next Friday I will give you a round up of what these crafty ladies whipped up. I didn’t register for baby clothes because I was counting on scoring a new handmade wardrobe for Lil Whip tomorrow!