Bibs for your Baby

I know I have been posting a lot of baby stuff recently, kind of ironic considering my youngest is almost 6 but it just so happens that I know quite a few people who are having or have recently had a baby. I remember that when my kids were babies, bibs were always in short supply, they are constantly getting soiled with food or soaked through with drool. I know gross but you know what I mean. Knowing this I decided that a few handmade bibs would be a perfect little gift for my cousin who recently had a little boy. I however needed a bib pattern so I googled free bib patterns and came up with this very easy pattern from Chickpea Sewing Studio, a great first project if you are a beginning sewer. I tell you I love the Internet for free patterns, what a great resource. I however have hated sewing with knit fabrics because they always stretch and pucker and I have hated how they turned out but I read a tip recently about using a walking foot when sewing with knits. Can I tell you I have never been so excited, the knit fabric used for the bibs hardly stretched,  there was no puckering and everything laid very flat. With this little trick, I can not wait to sew with knits again, I will have to see what I can come up with using my "em-agination."

Baby Needs a Dress

I don't know about you but I love to give and receive handmade gifts. It is true, they do take more time than going to a store and picking something out but I think they just show how much you care about someone when you take the time to make them something. It doesn't hurt either that I can usually make something for cheaper than I can buy it and it gives me an excuse to be creative. This weekend was one of those times when I needed a gift for a baby shower and I had been wanting an excuse to make this dress so off to Jo-ann's I went to find the perfect fabric for an Itty Bitty Baby dress and this is what I came up with.

As you can see I modified the pattern just a bit, I thought that the bows on the shoulders may be a bit uncomfortable for a little baby so I opted to cut off one of the flaps from the front of the dress and add buttons and button holes to the back flaps. This dress is quite easy to sew and only took about an hour from start to finish. I will definitely be making this dress again, maybe for my own little girl who isn't so little anymore. Stay tuned because this little number also has a cute little hat to go with it, more on that in the next post.