Sewing Project #3

I finally got to work on something new! After pretty much burning out on babylegs, I decided to try my hand at making some bibs for E. All of the ones we had were either way too dinky to do more than catch drool, or they were too plastic-y and distracting. She'd spend the whole time messing with her bib, trying to pull it off. Not to mention that you can't throw the plastic ones in the dryer. I did recently find this cute toddler bib, which is nice and big and not all vinyl-y, but at $10 a pop, I wasn't willing to buy more than one.

For a while, I toyed with the idea of making my own giant bibs by cutting up some old towels and just slapping on some bias tape and velcro, but well, let's be honest. I wanted E to have something cute. So the other day, I was at Hancock Fabrics and they had all their cotton flannel on sale. And I remembered seeing some cute little custom bibs on Etsy that were made out of flannel, so I thought, why not? It doesn't have to be super absorbent or stain proof. I mean, they're bibs, right? They're meant to get dirty and go into the wash. I figured what the heck, I'll buy a yard and give it a shot. Worse comes to worse, I wasted $5. (You gotta love that about baby stuff. It's all small, so you don't feel like you're investing as much money.) Besides, how cute is this fabric?

At first, I was going to double it up, so it was reversible. Then I thought about putting a layer of something in the middle, to make it more absorbent, either terry or jersey. After I made a little pattern (out of a paper grocery bag) and cut it though, I actually found this pattern for a bib almost exactly like the Bumkins one. I decided to stick with what I had already cut though and give that one a whirl next time around.

A few amendments to my original plan: I realized that the reversible thing was probably a waste of time since it's not like I'm going to dirty one side and then turn it over and put the dirty side against E's clean clothes! So instead, I decided to just do one layer of the flannel, and then back it with an old cut-up t-shirt. This also has the added bonus of doubling the number of bibs I can make. I also put the bias tape on (my first time ever using the stuff) and then added the velcro after. I hadn't intended to do it that way because it looks messier, but I realized after putting the velcro on first that the bias tape would cover up about half the velcro, making it easier for E to pull off.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's not as even or symmetrical as I'd like, but I can live with it. I'm going to make a few tweaks and make another one before I tackle that other pattern. I had no idea though that this one bib would use up all my bias tape! So I'll probably have to make another run to the store for more this weekend. Or I might just use the yellow tape I already have, even if it doesn't exactly match.

Here's an "action shot" of the bib: