It's a baby craft post!
I have become quite proficient at making these bibs and burp cloths (and the occasional matching paci leash), in girl varieties and boy varieties: in chenille, in cotton, in flannel, (maybe I should try minky now?), or quilted on the inside for more absorbency (for the bibs). I decided it was probably stupid to be adding the batting to the double-cotton-sided bibs and stopped, but then my sister Michelle told me how well the bib worked for her daughter who spit up a lot and it really absorbed well.
She said it was her favorite bib! Be still, my beating heart! I was afraid it looked dorky and didn't lay flat, but it looked fine. It's just always nerve-racking to make a new craft as a present, not having used it yourself first or knowing how well it will work. I'm about a 75-percent-efficient-useful-gift and 25-percent-looks-good kind of person. I will usually choose comfort and function over style, and it shows. I'm probably the frumpiest of my four sisters (but comfortable!), and also the most shy, but compared to others outside my family, I'm doing pretty well. So no worries.
These bibs that I made recently and am posting today, however, contain no batting. I know, I'm off telling stories and not describing the present craft. This Quite Possibly Craft is made of chenille on one side (cotton on the other), which is naturally absorbent, so I left the batting alone and just focused on cutting out a nice-sized and -shaped bib. I do the inside-out trick, where I sew right sides together but leave a hole, then turn the bib out and sew around to shut the hole and leave a nice stitch. Then I add (sew on) some velcro (buy the kind meant for sewing! or you will be crying!) for the "snap," so it's a little bit adjustable. Real snaps are also nice, but take some force to get on the bib. Literally, you have to hammer them on. The thicker the fabric, the harder it is to get snaps on. On chenille, it is something of a nightmare. Been there, done that. Looks great, but takes a lot of time and effort. I'm getting lazy in my middle-aged-ness. Do it however you like. Maybe you'll be queen (king?) of the snaps.
Here's the finished bib and burp cloth, with lovely applique monograms of the first letter of her son's name. I like how they look boutique-y expensive and fancy. I used the "lazy applique" method, which I should probably explain in a near-future post. (Basically I use that stuff you iron-on (comes in the purple and white baggie) and you can get cheaply at Wal-mart and then just trace, cut out, iron on and do a straight-stitch around. I know they say to zig-zag, but my machine does a really bad zig-zag. It's embarrassing. And this way looks fine and usually wears well too. But I know you quilters and pros out there are disgusted in my laziness at not doing the proper tight zig-zag. Quite possibly I don't care.)
I made the bib and burp cloth for a friend who just had her fourth child! She has one girl, and now three boys! I figured she probably already had tons of boy clothes, but just giving her a box of diapers seemed boring (and expensive!). Bibs and burp cloths are ALWAYS useful, and this kid is the third boy. He's going to get A LOT of hand-me-downs and not a lot of personalized stuff (so I would imagine). This was something that could be his. Or maybe he would be too little to remember, but it might mean something to his mom, too.
I already had the fabric lying around so I just needed to find the time. Chenille's not cheap. It's about $12 a yard. And I got the fabric cheap with a 50% JoAnn's Fabrics coupon. YEAH! Bad news about the chenille, though. At my local JoAnn's anyway, the chenille has all been moved to clearance and discontinued, and most of it is gone. They have a chenille-like fleece replacement that may one day grow on me, but for now I am in a bit of a quandary. I liked that chenille. Granted, it made a mess when you cut it, and another mess in the dryer for the first wash, but it was so soft. I used to use the scraps to make baby wash cloths (chenille and flannel), and I've received good reviews of those too, from mothers who got to use the product and gave me a little critique. I'm not going to order it online full-price and pay an arm and a leg for it though.
I know, you probably want instructions. I don't have any. I keep a sewing journal where I write down measurements and improvements to sewing "recipes," but this one is basically just a template that I got from another bib that fit my little baby girl quite nicely. So that's what I recommend you do. Trace a bib on regular cotton paper, make any adjustments to get the perfect shape and proportion you want (I've been big into proportions lately), and try and reiterate. The burp cloth is the size of a Gerber cloth diaper. I like to do chenille on one side, cotton fabric that matches the bib on the other, and sew two partitions so it folds up nicely like a cloth diaper, too! Or I will put cotton on the top and flannel on the bottom. Flannel is really good at gripping on your shoulder and not sliding off, and also is absorbent. Great for staying on your shoulder and not leaving you vulnerable to getting baby puke all over yourself!
Anyway, reiteration. It's always a learning process with a learning curve. Don't expect perfection the first time, you usually have to work out some kinks. But if you hit on the golden design pretty quickly, good work! And if you don't, keep trying! Ask around, check other blogs, be creative! :-)
Have fun crafting and being quite possibly creative!
Danelle
Quite Possibly Crafts
