Matching Christmas bibs

You know those cute little bibs you get as a present from people? Well, cute describes them well, but practical they are NOT! We have a couple of Christmas bibs but they are tiny and barely cover the food-spillage domain. Our son, Gabe, is especially adept at making a mess on his clothes during mealtime so we need heavy duty bibs in our house. Answer: sew bibs for them using old towels and cute fabric.

I used a bib that we had that was nice and big as my pattern. For the material, we have these red towels that we barely use so I used them since the red would look great for Christmas and the terry cloth is perfect for bibs. I cut out two pieces for each bib so that it would have two layers for durability and also because I planned on appliqueing on the top layer (and the second layer would hide the stitching on the underside of the top layer).

I decided to applique their initials and Christmas trees on the red terry cloth using leftover Christmas fabric I had.
These bibs have gotten so much wear and tear and have held up really well. They are also fun to make because they are easy to make, take very little time to make, and the design possibilities are endless! I will change a couple of things for next time:

1. The towels I cut the bibs from were very thick towels. The two layers of thick terry cloth made the bib a little stuff so I probably could have used a coordinating fabric for the bottom layer instead of the terry cloth.
   
2. To attach the front piece of terry cloth to the back piece, I sewed the wrong sides together for the outer edge of the bib, turned the bib right side out and then used bias binding for the neck (inner edge) to finish it off. I did this because I did not have enough bias binding in my stash to go around the complete outside of both bibs and I did not feel like making more. BUT, the towels I used for the bibs were very thick so when I turned the bib right side out after sewing around the outside, the seam on the inside of the two layers makes a bit of a bulge and almost makes the bib a bit puffy. Next time, I will not be lazy and will go ahead and make bias binding to go around the entire outside of both bibs. I do not love the process of making or using bias binding, but it will pay off in the end. I think it would be really cute to use the same fabric for the bias binding that you use for appliqueing.
   
3. These bibs have been washed a lot and I can see where some of the applique fabric has separated from the applique stitching. I will make my zigzag stitched wider next time to make sure that the applique fabric is really caught in the stitches and anchored well to the main fabric.

This picture below shows a better picture of Isabelle's bib even though it is on Gabe. It is also just an adorable picture of Gabe and one of our friends' little girl named Grace (great name, huh?).

Back in the swing of blogging

I know! I know!! I have been out of the blogging loop for a while but I am ok with that. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas season!! I thought I would get a ton of sewing done over that time because my husband was home for a week after Christmas, but other things crept up and stole the time which is totally fine. I do have quite a few projects which I need to update you all and blog about (sorry about the preposition thing there!). In the meantime, here is a picture of one of the things that kept us busy over Christmas...

Matching Aprons

These matching Mom-and-me aprons were so much fun to make for my friend Roxanne and her daughter, Haley. Aprons are awesome because you don't really need a pattern! "Why not?" you ask? Because you can use aprons you already have as the pattern! Aprons are so fun because the design possibilities are endless! Roxanne picked out the adorable purple fabric and cute eyelet trim (yellow for her and green for her daughter).

For Roxanne's, I thought about putting her 3 initials or just an "R" on it but since these aprons were meant for mommy-daughter cooking times and all daughters know their mom as "Mom", I changed my mind as appliqued "Mom" on hers with a cute yellow butterfly fabric and green thread. The pockets and ties are made out of the same fabric the applique fabric.
Haley's apron was so much fun, too! She prefers green, so the pocket, trim, and ties are in a cute green.

For Haley's apron, I thought she might like her name on it in a pretty font, so I tried my hand at embroidery. I found a cute font online and wrote Haley's name in that font on the apron with a temporary marker. I haven't done a lot of embroidery but I am getting better and better each time.


Are you intimidated by embroidery like I was? Don't be!!! All it is is your basic zigzag stitch with very little spaces between stitches. I don't have a hoop or anything fancy. I just take my time and have fun!