Ooh arr me 'arties!

My lovely friend Lorna gave birth to her long awaited baby boy Ronan a few weeks ago, and, having left any gift making to the last minute, though with a vague notion of designing some kind of bibs, I happened upon this fantastic toadstool fabric in John Lewis (pictured with white jersey and notions, plus some striped jersey for another pipeline project), which finally inspired me to make my notion into action!

I really wanted to make some bandana-style bibs. The first time I saw these, a few years ago when Noah was still a baby, I was somewhat dubious of their coolness - did they just look a bit silly? - but having since seen them on several friends babies, they have grown on me, and seemed an ideal shape to sew reasonably quickly.

I created a template using the neck of Laurie's bib, then freehanded the rest of the shape, onto a cereal box, from Noah's stash which I keep for him to paint on.

Then I drew around the template five times onto the back of the fabric and cut these out too.

I then pinned these onto the white jersey, right sides together, matching the grains, then roughly cut them out.

I then sewed the two layers together on the sewing machine, leaving an approx 1 1/2" opening in the neckline to turn the right way out. Once sewn together, I trimmed the seam allowances down to 1/4", using my rotary cutter wherever possible, and also cut off the sharp points at the bottoms and where the neck bits end, and turned them the right way out as I went...

 

... then gave them a press and pinned the neck openings shut...

...then top stitched 1/4" in from the edge with blue contrast thread.

Then I sewed the buttonholes using the buttonhole foot, sewed on the buttons, et voila! Five pirate bibs for a baby pirate - Ooh Arr!

I know - how many photos can you have of bibs? This fabric just photographs so beautifully that I couldn't stop!

This has turned into a partial and unintentional tutorial, but if you find it useful and find yourself making some baby bandanas too, I'd love to know.

xxx Sam

Disclaimer: I would just like to point out that in no way does Ronan resemble a pirate, and may only possibly do so whilst sporting his new bibs!