I had the day off recently, and a friend invited me and my youngest over for a play date and sewing party. Her son’s first birthday is approaching, and she wanted something fashionable and unique for his pictures.

We had discussed bow ties and she found some cute white and blue chevron fabric for the project. She had also picked up two widths of matching grosgrain ribbon to make mock suspenders on a onesie.

This was one of those projects that should have been pretty simple and straightforward, but resulted in a couple of hours and one re-do after I accidentally attached the double-sided interfacing on the wrong side first and then subsequently sewed the bow tie fabric closed (because I was busy talking). I tried ripping the seam, but the interfacing was too sticky and the whole thing ended up being a balled up mess. Oops! We ended up scrapping that one and started again fresh. (Thankfully, I have wonderful friends who love me!)

Her iron had some weird malfunction, too, where water was literally pouring out of one of the bottom steam holes all over her board and floor. It only did that after she lifted it back up from ironing each time, and of course, we didn’t notice this right away, so it had accumulated a little puddle under and on her board before we caught on to the problem.

Between the mishaps, our talking, and our combined three kids needing random assistance throughout the visit (one snotty nose, two spilled goldfish crackers incidences, three television show discussions, and the pretend eating of half a dozen delicious play cupcakes), we finally accomplished our goal to make one dapper onesie for a sweet little lad!

You can find directions on how to create a bow tie on this blog post. Her instructions are easy to follow, and include additional options (like a strap to wear the bow tie) if you’re looking for something a little different. I simply added a snap to the back of the bow tie so it could be snapped onto the onesie, and tacked the ribbon ends to the onesie top and bottom seams on either side for the “suspenders” look (be sure to leave a little give for movement).