Dishtowel Bibs

I don’t know about your kids, but when mine eat, they make a huge mess.

I’ve yet to find a store bought bib that provided adequate coverage.

So, I just made my own.  I mean Monkey’s own…you know what I meant. 

Okay.  Fine.  I’m such a messy eater I wanted it for me. 

There.  I said it.  Are you happy now?  ;)

Start off with some dishtowels, and some neckline ribbing.  The towel I used in this tutorial was a Christmas towel.  :)

I also used up a hooded bath towel and some flannel blankets we weren’t using.

I started off by cutting the appliqued design off of the hooded towel and sewed it over the holly on the Christmas towel.

Fold the towel about 1/3 of the way down lengthwise.

Take a sheet of paper and measure the neck opening of one of your baby’s shirts.  Mark it on the paper, cut it out, and use that as the pattern for the bib.  Now cut it out.

Measure out some ribbing that is just a bit smaller than the opening in the towel. 

Sew it into a circle.  Fold it over so that the seam is on the inside.  Now with the right sides together, pin the ribbing to the neck opening on the towel.  Serge or zig-zag stitch so that you’ve still got some stretch in it. 

Press it flat, then lengthen your straight stitch on your sewing machine and top stitch over the serged/zig-zagged stitch.  This is the exact same process we used when we made the Dolman Style Tee, remember?

This is what your bib should look like now:

Now, for the others, I hacked up some flannel blankets and towels we weren’t using.  I cut them the same size as a dishtowel.

Then I sewed them together around the outer edges (with the right sides of the blanket and towel facing each other) and left a 4” opening at the bottom.  I trimmed the corners and turned the bib right side out through the opening.  Then I pressed it flat and top stitched around the outer edges and made sure I closed up that hole.

Sorry.  I didn’t take any pictures of that part.  …hanging my head in shame…

Then I just repeated the same process as the dishtowel bib above. 

I was going to have the problem of the fabric shifting in the laundry.  To avoid that, I just cut out some stars and “R’s” (hint: Monkey’s name starts with R) and sewed them to the top of the bibs.

Guess what?  These bibs didn’t cost me a thing!  The provide more than adequate coverage for Monkey’s eating messes, AND they’re cute!

{whispering}

Apparently they’re comfy, too.