Handmade Baby Clothes – Make a Bib!

Bibs are a bit of a gray area of the handmade baby clothes world. Are they really clothes? Well, depending on the drooli-ness of your baby, their bib may be the thing that is seen more often than that cute top underneath! So in my opinion, a bib is definitely clothing in the world of babies. It is also something that is wonderful to think about when making an outfit, because there is nothing that says “I’ve got it together,” than a child who is wearing an outfit with a coordinating bib! Bibs are quick to make, extremely useful, and very gift-able.  If you start now, you’ll have some great Christmas gifts in no time.  Here are some tutorials and do-it-yourself ideas for making a baby bib:

Take your fabric scraps that you’ve been keeping for ages (yes, those tiny ones that you thought would be good for something), and make a patchwork bib! This is a project that is hard to mess up. The Sewing Dork has a great tutorial.

Purl Soho has a wonderful bib kit. All the materials (including the thread) are all nicely packaged to save you time and effort. Plus, the kits are in great Liberty of London fabrics in a range of colors. Each kit makes 4 bibs.

The latest Good Housekeeping magazine has an updated pattern of a puppy bib that they originally featured in 1961. It’s really cute! You can download the instructions and pattern on the Good Housekeeping website by clicking here and then advancing to slide #12 to download their PDF instructions.

Make Baby Stuff just recently added two new baby bib patterns to their website. I like this pocket bib pattern that looks really easy and functional using just one piece of laminated cotton and some bias tape.

The Sew Mama Sew website is featuring another pocket bib from Made by Rae. This also has a full tutorial for you. Same idea as above, but a little different:

As I was preparing for my little one, I knitted a bib out of creamy cotton, using a pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting (an all-time favorite knitting book of mine). The pattern is super simple – just garter stitch for about an hour and you’ve done it (don’t look too close — I got into my stockinette stitch habit in a few little spots). It’s very boxy, which gives it good coverage. It also washes well and feels so nice. Save yourself a little time and forget the gauge swatch; if you don’t already know, there is no such thing as a bib that is too big.

Another do-it-yourself knitted bib project is from Petite Purls. She has a very detailed post (including a vide0) on making a bib out of t-shirt yarn. (Yes, t-shirt yarn is “yarn” made from t-shirts.) I’ve made my own t-shirt yarn before, and that part can be time consuming, so it depends on how badly you want to recycle that drawer of hardly worn free t-shirts. But the result is fun and funky!

Technorati Tags: bib, gift idea, Handmade Baby Clothes, knit, recycle, T-shirt yarn, upcycle