Isn’t she cute? 8 months old and LOVING food. Especially MANGOS. I have no idea why. But seriously, you’ve never seen a baby so excited about any one particular fruit. It’s funny!
And because she needed bibs, I decided to make a FEW bibs. So, I pulled out the fabric that I had (much of it donated or yard saled) and started cutting out. And, as I tend to like to cut out a bunch of anything at one time and then spend weeks sewing… well, I cut out a few. Just a few. Like as in enough for 35.
My idea was to send bibs to people that I know who have or are about to have little babies and would be able to use and appreciate bibs. Part of my “Pay it Forward for the rest of my life” plan. So, about half of these are already spoken for. The rest I planned on putting in my stash to use as baby gifts to people I know or don’t know in the future.
The pattern I used was the Bapron bib pattern that is currently for sale for $6 at Craftiness is not Optional blog. I saved the pattern a couple of years back when she still had it up on her blog for free. Even at her current price – it is a good price!
I also made ALL of the bias tape used in all of the bibs. First, you should know that each bib needs about 2 1/2 yards of bias tape. Each. Yes, you did the math correctly. That is over 80 YARDS of bias tape that I made by hand. 80. Yards. I got the fancy Clover Bias Tape Maker and bought flannel fabric…. and realized that flannel doesn’t work in bias tape makers. So, 2 yards of flannel had to be ironed into tape. By. Hand. Sigh. At over $2 for a 4 yard packet of less than wonderful store bought stuff in boring colors… I got 20 yards or more from each yard of fabric that I bought for $5. So, I saved a bit of money ($5 vs $10 for store bought) but it is MUCH prettier! And really – not that hard! It was almost fun all of the ironing while listening to NPR (which is what I do most of the time when I sew).
I bought normal fabric for the edges and really, small print is best. The browns and purple came from Walmart of all places (about our only local option and I wasn’t going into the city any time soon) but worked up really well and was a surprisingly nicer weight fabric. But, because my brain is a bit slow on baby sleep, I had to resort to on-line tutorials to figure out how to make the tape. To get the most tape out of a yard of fabric, I used this tutorial at Whipstitch Fabrics to cut the fabric on an angle and then sew it to the other side – so the entire yard of fabric can be cut into strips on the bias. But, they then wanted it to be cut all in one long strip and honestly, drawing lines on the fabric and then pinning and then cutting – blah… too much! So, after I got my yard cut and re-sewn the right way, then I switched over to Dana Made It and used her tutorial on how to cut the strips and then sew the strips together once they’re all skinny. For me – much easier! Plus, Dana has a fab description of what bias tape is and the different types of makers and sizes and… good basic info!
As I was sitting in my little space sewing, I was thinking about the year past in this house of ours. You see, this past weekend was our 1 year anniversary to move into the house. It wasn’t done (still not entirely finished – still no steps out the back doors and some trim still needs to be painted) but it was time and I was hugely pregnant and not fitting so well into the RV any more and… We were so relieved to be back into a real house. We still are. And we are so grateful to the huge number of people that helped us get back to this state of “normal”… Part of my “Pay it Forward” campaign is to have give aways just because. To share the love with people that I don’t know just as people that didn’t know us helped me helped during my time of disaster.
So, I am giving away these two bibs. (Above and below pictures – they are the front and back shots.) Both gender neutral so good for little boys or girls.
To enter, please comment below, be sure to include your email address. Please tell us what random act of kindness you’ve done recently. Big or small doesn’t matter…
Like me on Facebook at Life on the Clothesline and then leave a comment on the contest post on FB for an extra entry. If you already follow me on FB, please leave a comment on that post, too.
Contest closes May 19 at midnight. That’s two weeks. Please tell your friends and share the love. More importantly, be kind to each other and help when you can. Even if you never hear the words “thank you” it doesn’t mean that your actions didn’t matter. Thanks to you all…
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