Tutorial: How To Make Bibs

Cute right? I made all these for under $4! My 5 month old is the queen of drool right now so we needed somthing cute to have her wear ALL DAY LONG instead of changing her clothes every hour. I added batting that I had on hand to soak up the drool and don't know what the exact loft size was but it's about 1/2" thick and it flattens out when you iron it.

Here's what you need:

Fat Eighths Fabric

Batting

Velcro or Snaps

Sewing Machine

Rotary Mat & Cutter

I've never heard of these til now but I love them! Here's what they look like laid out Cut each fat eighth in half and either putthe same ones together (right sides together) or mix them up like I didLay fabric on your batting and cut it out Pin all of it together with the batting on the bottom Find an old bib that fits how you like it - my new bibs will obviously be shorter than the one I used. Trace (I used chalk) about 1/2" around it for the seam allowance. Cut it out and add more pins along the edge Sew about 1/2" from the edge leaving a hole at the bottom that your hand can fit through.

Cut triangles out on the curvy parts so it will be less bulky

Pull the first neck straps out of the hole you left...

then the second...

Now it's starting to look like a bib!

Iron it flat and fold under the part you left open, including the batting

Top-stitch around the entire bib closing the opening as you sew

Add some velcro or snaps and you're done.

Aren't the fat eighths awesome!!? I will be using them again and again for future projects! They're about $6 and I used my 40% off at Joanns so $3.60! Gotta love it!

~Star

I'm linking up (for the first time!) with:

Tutorial: How To Make A Crib Skirt

Dust ruffle, bed skirt... whatever you call it, you need one on your baby's crib. It's cute and most importantly it will hide all of your tubs of toys, clothes and diapers.

I imagine the gathered ruffles are easier to make but I really like the look of pleats and thought others might too so I put a little tute together. These measurements work for standard sized cribs (30" X 54")

You will need:

Sewing machine with overlock foot or serger
2 yards of panel fabric

1 yard of pleat fabric

1 & 1/2 yards of cheap fabric in the same color as your panel fabric

Rotary Mat & Cutter

***Always wash, dry and iron fabric before cutting***

I made the bed skirt pictured above about a year ago and actually hemmed EVERY SINGLE PIECE before sewing it together because I didn't have a serger but I wanted the underside to look nice:

See? Never again.

It was a lot of work and I decided never to do that again. I was waiting until the day I got a serger to do another dust ruffle but then I discovered overcasting and the overlock foot (thanks Janelle!). It stitches over your edges so they look finished and don't ravel. Or unravel. Whatever the word is. Some machines come with one but I had to order mine. It doesn't trim the fabric like a serger but it gets the job done! So I just finished a new crib skirt and will be using the pictures of it for this tute.

So here's what you do:

Cut your 2 yard panel fabric into three equal 2 yard strips (they should each be about 14.5" high - this is your skirt length). Cut the strips into six 9.5" wide pieces (USE THESE FOR SHORTER PANELS) and eight 13" wide pieces (USE THESE FOR LONGER PANELS). You will have fourteen pieces total.

Cut your 1 yard of pleat fabric into three equal 1 yard strips (they should be about 14.5" each - this is your skirt length). Cut the strips into ten 7.5" wide pieces.

Pin your pieces together to make your 4 panels and make sure to line up the tops so you can trim any excess from the bottom afterwards. Pictured below is one long side and one short side. Make 2 of each with the fabric in this order (my pleats are the patterned pieces):

Now sew each piece together using a 1/2" seam allowance

then overcast or serge the edges

and this is how it should look:

If you need to trim the bottom make sure you used a ruler so you cut it straight.



Now to hem along the bottom just fold 1/4" then iron, fold another 1/4", iron again, then sew. Hem each end the same way.


Now get out your cheap fabric and cut it to 53" X 29". Find the center of each side either by measuring or folding it in half and place a pin at the center on each side's edge.

Do the short panels first. Line up the centers of the cheap fabric and the panel and pin the unfinished edges right sides together at the center.

Now to make your pleats! Starting on the side closest to the center of the panel and working your way out, pull pleat fabric up out of the way and place panel fabric pieces directly next to eachother so the pleat fabric is... well, "pleated".

Like this:

Now lay pleat flat and pin along the unfinished edge AND pin the bottom of the pleat to help keep it in place while you sew. You could even put one more pin in the middle to hold it even more. Iron them flat.

Do this with each pleat until the whole side is done then sew along unfinished edge with a 1/2" seam allowance

EDITED TO ADD: When you sew the short panels on, they will end 1/2" before the edge on both ends. I did it this way on purpose so that the long panels will line up perfectly, edge to edge, with the cheap fabric.

Do all 4 sides, iron pleats flat and that's it! Please ask any questions you may have and show me your bed skirt if you use my tutorial for it!

~Star

Shout Out

I want to say thanks to everyone who has linked or followed my craft blog - I really do notice and appreciate it!

I just found out that a couple days ago, Lori at Just Pure Lovely wrote about my 9-patch baby quilt on her website here (I used her tute to make mine) and she even added the picture of my quilt! How sweet is that!? As soon as I saw it I ran and told my husband, "Someone that I don't know wrote about me!" lol

~Star

Crib Quilt

I love this quilt top pattern! It's called the "disappearing 9 patch" and the tutorial I used for it is found at Just Pure Lovely. I like it because it looks like it took a lot more work than it actually did! All you do is sew 9 squares of fabric together then cut that down the middle both ways so it makes 4 squares, mix them all up and sew them together! Okay maybe that sounds hard but if you just look at the pictures you'll get it. I only used 4 different fabrics instead of the recommended 9 because I was matching my crib sheet and dust ruffle and adding more patterns would have been too much.

As far as the binding, I refuse to do *real* binding because that much hand-sewing BITES. So instead I found Every Day Mom's great tutorial for self-binding. The only part I didn't do was to top-stitch at the end - instead I just hand-sewed the small opening shut. Oh and I also managed to get batting inside there by just squeezing the batting into the tiny opening at the end then tying it to keep it in place.

Let me know if you have questions and show me if you do one of your own!

~Star

Crib Sheet

Bundles Of Love's crib sheet pattern is the easiest sewing project ever! It only takes 4 simple steps. She lists three options for finishing the edge in case you are A) serger-less like I am, or B) terrified of sewing elastic like I was last year when I made this. Even though I was a scaredy-cat I still used option #3 where you sew the elastic and it turned out to be a cinch.

By the way, I stumbled upon this pattern using a google search forever ago and I never looked at the rest of their website until tonight when I looked it up to link them in this post. These guys are amazing - their charity provides quite a large amount of baby items to families in need all by volunteer work. Check out their homepage to find out more.

Stay tuned for the rest of the tutorials from my crib bedding that I will be posting in the near future!

~Star