The pitter-patter of little feet; the incessant poking of little toes

As well as replacing our old mattress last weekend, I tackled another bittersweet project - packing up a batch of clothes my son has outgrown, for my nephew, who is a year younger. This is only the second time I've had to do that, since it seems like most of his growth since he was six months old has been just to make his limbs longer. I've been seeing him in some of those little shirts and footies for months and months now, and they're only just now too small, so it caused some pangs to give them up! But hopefully at least a few items will find use again for his cute little cousin.

To that end, I tried to do some repairs on one of my favorite little footies. He wore it so much that the feet developed holes at the toes.


First I took the foot bottoms off as carefully as I could.


I have no way of replacing that fabric, so in order to get a nice knit, I grabbed an old onesie that got a bad stain on the back. It has a pleasing waffle-weave texture.


There was enough room on the onesie around the seams & stains to get a double layer on the feet. Also I decided to incorporate the embroidery that had been on the front.


Then it was just a matter of pinning the new feet in place...


...and sewing them in place.  To try to replicate the performance of serging with handsewing, I both straight-stitched AND whip-stitched all the way around.


Right-sides out again, here are the 'handsome' new feet!


So these are on their way to my nephew now, with all the rest.