A Very Knottie Tutorial

Babies love a taggie - it's something to hold on to, explore, snuggle and play with, all in one. Well, we have gone one step further, and our lovely Jess has designed a knottie. Yes, you've guessed - it's a taggie with a knot! We think this is even better than the original taggie as it creates yet another surface texture for your baby to play with.

Using some gorgeous Birch organic fabrics - Rio Geo Sun - Ipenema, designed by Dennis Bennett, and their Jersey in Shroom (great name), the knottie is so wonderfully soft that you'll want to snuggle it yourself.

Jess has chosen an eclectic selection of ribbons including ricrac, velvets and chevron weaves to give your littl'uns a wide range of textures to comfort them and stimulate their senses.

So, enough waffle. I bet you want to know how to make your own!


What you need:

35cm of a cotton fabric for the top.
35cm of a soft jersey for the back.
20cm each of 8 different ribbons and ricracs etc (see the picture above for the range that we used).
Coordinating thread.
Tissue paper or suchlike for making the template.

1) First of all, using your tissue paper, make a kite shaped template approximately 35cm x 75cm. The corners need to come about 20cm down from the top. It's a good idea to fold it in half to make sure it is symmetrical (unless being wonky is your thing, of course - sometimes it's mine!)

2) Using your template, pin and cut a kite shape from both of the fabrics.

3) Place the two pieces of fabric with right sides together and at the wider end of the kite, sandwich the ribbons (folded double) between the layers with the ribbon on the inside. I think you'll need to look at the pictures above and below for a better, visual explaination of this!

The ribbons need to be placed at intervals with approximately 2-3cm gaps between them, and pinned into place. Jess found that it is best to only go up to about 10cm above the corners of the kite in order to have enough space to tie your knot.

4) Sew all around the kite, leaving a 10cm gap in order to turn it right way out. Just use the presser foot as a guide for seam allowance.

5) Turn the knottie the right way out, and topstitch all the way round, with a 1/4" seam, enclosing the gap as you sew.

6) Last, but by no means least, tie a knot in the longer end of the kite shape and ta-dah! You have a lovely, soft knottie.

Go on, have a snuggle.

Happy stitching!