Time Out...For Bibs and a Pressing Board

We have a drooler. Yes, at three and half months old, our grandson can soak through several onesies a day. So over the past few weeks, I've been working on a remedy. More drooly bibs! I've made him (as well as his cousins) little flannel bibs like the ones in this post as part of their first wardrobes. They are fun to make, but I wanted to try something that would be a little softer. So I bought some tee-shirts in size 2T to 3T and set out to make bibs around them so that the neckline of the shirts became the neckline of the bibs. Each week I tweaked the design a bit until I had one I liked. When I work on a quilt, I usually have a pretty specific plan in place before I begin, but when I make little items for the babies in my life, I tend to just wing it--improvise. This can be a problem because I don't bother to take pictures and can't always explain how I made things. Oh, well. I'll show you a picture of what I made with a few notes copious drivel of how I tweaked the design, and then you can improvise to find what works for you if you are inspired to make bibs for a little one in your life. 

I forgot to take a picture of the very first bib I made. (It's already been used and covered with drool). The first picture is pretty close in style. For that bib, I cut some bib shaped pieces for a front and a back. I turned the neck edges and shoulders under and then layered them with a piece of batting and a tee-shirt that I had cut to fit the same contour.  I left a little of the back of the tee-shirt in place. On the first bib, I put the top and back fabrics right sides together on top of the tee-shirt and put the batting on top of those and then sewed around the outside edge (leaving the neck/shoulder open). Then I turned them right side out so that the order was top fabric, batting, tee-shirt, back, and I topstitched around the neck edge and finished with more topstitching around all edges. (On the second bib, I got the order "wrong" so that the back fabric was inside the bib layers and the tee-shirt was on the back. But no matter. Both ways work. You just have to fiddle with it.) I hemmed the back edge of the bib and sewed a little fabric "badge" on the back to weigh it down a bit.

The first bibs turned out a little loose around the neck and some drool still escaped. Also I didn't like the look of the floppy tee-shirt back, so for the second pictured bib I cut a slit in the back of the tee-shirt and added extensions to the bib parts (more like typical baby bibs). Because I was winging it, I cut these pieces separately from the bib fronts and ended up with kind of bulky shoulder seams. But the construction was basically the same, with the addition of velcro closures. 

For the third pictured bib, I made the pieces of the bibs continuous, eliminating the shoulder seams. I liked that one the best, so I made the fourth one the same. 

These bibs all work pretty well, but my daughter-in-law had mentioned bandana style bibs, so of course I had to try one of those. I found a pattern I liked here on Project Nursery.

This made up in a snap. I used flannel for the front and back and batting as a filler (the size of the back, not the front) and used velcro for a closure. It was adorable on baby E, so I made a couple more...

These are cotton on top with both flannel and batting layers inside (size of the back) and a soft jersey knit back (recycled tee-shirt material from the rag bag). 

Even though I had fun making the tee-shirt neck bibs, the bandana bibs win hands down for the cool factor. And I like the last ones best.   

Just have to share one more project--not baby related, but it does relate to quilt-making. Years ago, the quilt guild I belonged to at the time had a workshop for making mini pressing boards out of cutting boards. We were supplied with the board, several pieces of batting and muslin to layer on it, a piece of ticking, and some feet. As I recall, all we had to supply was a staple gun and staples to put it together. That board has been a great tool even though it has looked pretty grim for awhile now. And then a few weeks ago, the point of my iron went right through the ticking.

Something had to be done. I bought some fresh new ticking--blue this time. I took the old ticking off and used it as a pattern, then wrapped the board again sort of like a present (I reused all the old layers of batting and muslin and added one more extra layer of ticking), made a new handle, stapled it all back together and reattached the feet. 

 Here's the back:

The ticking isn't quite as hefty as the old ticking, so it might not last as long, but I have enough left over to redo it again if I need to. I can't wait to put it to work.

Okay, enough about side projects. Time to get back to quilting. Hopefully I'll have a finish to show you next week. 

I'm linking up today with Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday. Have fun quilting and making those projects on the side!