Home-made Dribble Bandana bib

How-to-make-a-dribble-bib-like-this

I have been a huge fan of baby dribble bibs ever since Anna started dribbling all over her dress. And I bought my first "Dribble-On" bib on eBay for a whopping 4 pounds. I have to say the quality is good, but its big n bulky for a baby. Here is the pic of the Dribble-On 

And then I set forward to make a dribble bib which is not too big or bulky and it was a pretty easy task.

All you need is 

1. 10" x 10" square fabric folded corner to corner (any fabric which will absorb water, cotton, cotton jersey, terry towel, or even little silk for an "occasion" bib). The front and back piece can be done in different colours or fabrics as well, let your imagination run wild.
2. No-sew snap poppers
3. Triangle pattern (with seam allowance). I made my pattern out of the Dribble-On bib, but made it a bit smaller as shown in picture below.

 

The standard dribble bib pattern can be altered as shown below to reduce the bulk of fabric which will come under baby's neck if you fancy.

Walk with me ladies

I’m making a little dribble bib to match the pretty little dress I made for Anna last week to make it an outfit.

1. Cut two triangles from the fabric with help of the pattern. It’s always good to try the very first pattern on a piece of scrap cloth n try it around your little ones neck to make sure the size is all right. Bibs too big looks awkward and too small are pretty useless.

2. Place one triangle on top of the other, right sides facing each other, and sew on all three sides. Don’t forget to leave a small opening in the sewing line to turn the bib inside out.

3. Cut the seam close to the stitch and snipe the corners to get a clean finish when the bib is turned inside out.

 3. Now turn the bib inside out and press.

4. Top stitch the sides to give it a better finish. You can top stitch the neck line as well, but it will make the bib stiffer around the neck. I did my top stitch in a contrasting red to make it match with the dress.

 

5. Now try the bib on your baby and mark the position of poppers with a chalk or invisible marker pen. If you are wondering what snap poppers are and how to use it, check Ashley's guide to snap poppers

6. Wow! The bib is ready, Check out the outfit!!

PS : Wondering how to make that pretty little dress out of a mummy night dress??? Stay tuned...

Home-made High Chair Cover

This is the story of how I resurrected a 5 year old high chair for my little princess.

I was given this Chicco highchair by a lady in church (which was already used by her two sons), with lots of love and lots of wear. And she told me how badly she wanted to give it away to a loving home, and I thought well, why not!! Saves money! This is pretty much what it looked like when it was given to me, the cover was torn and quite battered.

So it was left to me to make a cover for the seat. The research into new fabrics and batting/quilting and patterns took me to this lovely lady and her wonderful blog. The blog tells you how to go about making a pattern for the new cover by cutting up the old cover, and this is exactly what I did.

The photo below shows how the pieces looked like once i cut them all through the seams.

The next step is to trace the patterns into a newspaper or something sturdy just to make your life easier while cutting the fabric and batting. I used polyester batting which cost around 4.20 pounds a meter. 

Materials Required for My high chair - 

1.5 meter fabric (I used cotton), 3.25 meter matching bias binding, and about a meter of batting.

I had cut the fabric with help of the paper patterns and everything was sewn together and all edges finished with bias binding. Sorry I don’t have photographs of this bit of action. The one thing that was quite handy while sewing with two layers of fabric and a layer of batting sandwiched in between was this video showing how to use the basting spray I found on eBay UK. (ODIF 505 Temporary Fabric craft spray adhesive Patchwork Quilting Glue)

My wonderful Janome allows sewing automatic button holes, which I used to create the slits for five point safety harness. It was bit tricky to hold all that fabric under the button-hole foot, but it worked anyways.

Here are few pics of finished chair cover; Remember! all I tried to do was to put together the pieces exactly the same way as they were in the original cover. Im not giving instructions on how to do that, as it is going to vary between different highchair models. The elastic and latches came from the old cover.The back flap of the cover was sewed on top of  the front part as shown in picture below, and then turned over to back so that the cover will mould into the curve of the chair.

And Voila!! Here is my little lady enjoying her toast on her new (well, almost new) high chair!

PS : Did you notice her Union Jack dribble bib, Well that was home-made to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee of reign. Want to know how to make a no-fuss-dribble bib??? Stay tuned!!

The Stitch Ripper

Many a times have I wondered, what on earth I was thinking by signing up for an engineering degree when I had neither talent nor passion for it. But that step seemed to take me in for a rollercoaster ride which gave me a bachelors degree and a career in software industry. And after about 11 years that rollercoaster stopped with my earning the new eternal degree of motherhood.

Having Anna-Claire has changed my life in so many ways, like my morning coffee is now late morning coffee, and my wardrobe is anything and everything that fits me somehow and allows a baby feed, pedicures are long lost dreams and I don’t think I have slept for than 3 hours in a stretch for past 8 months. 

But the two very best things I gained with motherhood is a beautiful baby and lots of "TIME", yes lots and lots of time at my disposal. And to make sure I don't lose myself in this new found joy, I decided to pursue a long lost passion - Needle craft. My dear husband agreed to let me exchange my birthday gift necklace to buy a sewing machine and I am a proud owner of a Janome 7025 (John Lewis Machine) .

Also I took a small sewing course where this wonderful lady taught me how to follow patterns and how to make the inside of all dresses look as beautiful as outside. I realised a few things from the course -

Sewing machine bought with lots of love is never heavy to carry around.
Dress making and following patterns is really not my thing.

I'm so crazy about craft, that i sometimes dream about new projects.

I love Hobby Craft store.

I love fabrics and ideas.

and stitch ripper - the life saver, yep!