New Priority No 2: Baby Clothes

I have already told you that my sewing priorities for 2021 changed and are very much influenced by being pregnant. I wrote about my maternity clothes projects as well as my love for baby quilts. Another priority is making baby clothes for my baby boy.

And this would be a real challenge! I have never made anything for a male human being (despite a pullover I knitted for my husband two years ago for Christmas)…

I think sewing for men is not easy in general. They are much pickier than women and have very specific ideas about what they want and how it should look like. I would have actually preferred to sew for a little girl rather than a little boy. 😉

But of course, I welcome any new challenge and my little boy would learn to love handmade clothes! And after all, especially in the beginning, sewing patterns for baby clothes are more or less the same for girls and for boys.

There is no Jersey in Doha

The first challenge however was finding the right fabrics. Most baby clothes are made from jerseys and it seems to be impossible in Doha to find any quality jersey at all. I had bought some plain black and grey jersey fabrics in the fabric market before. But the quality was horrible! The time spent sewing with them could really be considered lost time. 

Jersey is something that does not make a lot of sense for the temperatures in Qatar, I believe. People don’t buy it. They prefer lighter and silkier materials. And this is what the shops in the market offer in a huge variety.

Ordering Cute Jersey Prints

So my only option was to order fabrics. And I started researching my trusted online fabric stores in Germany. The ‘Kingdom of Fabrics’ and Stoff & Stil. What a jersey heaven! And what cute prints I found for little baby boys. I ended up spending a fortune, but I most probably have enough fabrics to make him clothes for his first entire year. 🙂

Choosing fabrics for baby clothes for a little boy is actually quite fun! More than I ever expected. You end up with a whole zoo of animals. I had to limit myself to little penguins, crocodiles, seals, hedgehogs, cats, and crabs. And of course, a few robots and rockets as well as his daddy is very much into everything related to space exploration which needs to be reflected in his little boy’s clothes! 🙂

Choosing Baby Clothes Patterns

My fabric arrived in Doha with much delay. So, now I look at it daily thinking about where to start! And here comes challenge no 2 of making baby clothes.

What clothes does a little baby need? What is practical for the very little ones and what is cute, but super unpractical to wear or put on? What sizes to start with? And how many pieces of what size? 

I did not want to make too many clothes in the smallest size, but also not too few. And I wanted to make clothes that actually worked for the weather in May when he is supposed to join us. But where would my baby be in May and where would he be born? This is still an open question and there are only about 3 months to go until then. 

I ended up making a list, of how many baby clothes my baby would need for the first 1 or 2 months. These I would make in the smallest 2 sizes and just hope that he fits into them until I manage to make more:

• six different onesies (without and with sleeves, without and with pant legs)
• one or two pairs of trousers
• up to three t-shirts or pullovers
• one jacket
• three pajamas

And here we come to challenge no 3! Choosing the fabrics for each piece of clothing. And this is where I am currently stuck.

If you have any suggestions or recommendations in this regard, please comment below! 🙂