Tutorial: Fast and Easy Baby Bib from a Dish Towel

Have you noticed that most baby bibs you buy are absolutely useless? They are so tiny they barely cover 1/3 of the baby's chest. This results in food smeared in all over their clothes! Maybe it's just me, but that is really frustrating! I have a couple of bibs that give full coverage over the shoulders and falls into the lap. These bibs are awesome, but they are difficult to find. Then I realized I could make my own for cheaper and even embellish them in colors and themes I would actually want. I wanted to share this with you. Even if you don't have a baby, this would make a great gift for someone you know who is.

You can use any type of dish towel you would like. After looking at several types and prices I opted for this microfiber material type I found at Walmart. I believe it was $3.88 for this 2 pack. I like the material because it has a nice texture that will grab on to the food. You can certainly pick up cheaper dish towels, but this one had a good weave that didn't look like it would pill or develop a run in the fabric if it was snagged.

I laid my favorite bib over one of the towels for size which turns out to be half of the size. I can get 4 bibs out of the 2 towels!

First cut your towel in half.

Fold over the top portion to cut a circle out for the neck. If you are making this for your own baby you can measure their head and neck to get an accurate size.

Next, sew FOE (Fold Over Elastic) with a zig zag stitch on the neckline, fully stretching the elastic as you sew. You can find FOE at JoAnn's. There is a new brand of cloth diapering products called Babyville Boutique who make really cute colors and prints of FOE.

Take a wide ribbon and pin along the outer edges of the bib. This makes a nice colorful edge and also keeps you from having to finish out the cut edge of the towel by serging.

Sew ribbon on with a straight stitch.

Take your fabric that you are going to cut embellishments from and iron to heat and bond.

Cut out your applique. I used my GO! Baby Rose of Sharon template to cut several flowers. So fast and easy! I love the layers I can create with the flowers.

After you lay out your pieces where you want them, iron them well on the bib. I recommend using a tight zig zag stitch around each applique piece to secure to the bib. I chose not to on this particular one. Either way it looks really cute!

Easy Embellished Dish Towel Tutorial

It seems like we go through lots of dish towels around here. I'm also very picky about my dish towels, they must be very absorbent! Nothing is worse than having a dish towel that won't dry your hands or dishes well. My very favorite dish towel is the flour sack type which is 100% cotton. If you haven't tried these, you must! I also like to use these to embellish for gifts. Since Christmas is right around the corner these would be great stocking stuffers. Very inexpensive and fast to make.

I purchase my flour sacks at Target in a pack of 4 and equals out to $1 a piece. Make sure you wash, dryer and then iron your flour sacks well before sewing. These usually don't shrink up too much, but you want to make sure you do get any shrinkage out of the way before you sew with them.

Fold your towel in thirds. 

Then fold the towel in half. This will keep the "raw" ends of the towel hidden and make a nice, neat hand towel.

Next you need to prepare your fabric embellishment(s) that you will be sewing on to the towel. I used my GO! Baby Fall Medely template to cut out the perfect pumpkin out of a scrap of orange knit t-shirt. Iron heat and bond to the back of the scrap material and then cut out your image.

Iron the image to your towel.

Pin around the image keeping the material in place while you sew around the image. Please note that I am only sewing through the top 2 layers of my towel and not all 4 layers. This keeps the backside of the towel nice and neat and you will not see the thread from the appliqued image.

Use a tight zig zag stitch to sew around your image. Experiment on a scrap of fabric to get your setting just right. Take your time sewing around your image for the best results.

Next pin ribbon around the dish towel and tuck the raw edges in between the layers of the towel.

I added 3 rows of smaller ribbon. Now use a zig zag stitch to secure. Sew slow and make sure you are catching the ribbon on the backside of your towel as well.

Last, I used  a straight stitch to sew the long edges of the towel. Then used fabric paint to paint on the face of my pumpkin (I'm not the greatest artist, no judging haha!)

I plan on making some Christmas ones for stocking stuffers. The ideas for making embellished dish towels are endless!

Tutorial: Upcycle Wool Sweater to a Pair of Baby/Toddler Longies or Pants

If you cloth diaper I'm sure that you have heard about wool. Wool is the most awesome cloth diapering item you can own. I admit, it took me a long time to even try wool, but now I'm hooked! Wool is a natural, breathable nonbacterial material that is perfect for night time diapering. Both of my boys are super soakers at night and PUL pocket diapers do not work. Believe me, I've tried doublers.........even tripple stuffing! Does. Not. Work. I finally tried wool and it works! Fitteds and a wool cover is my bullet proof night time diapering system now and very happy with it. Everyone needs to at least try wool, you will be surprised, I promise!


It is very easy to sew up a pair of longies or shorties out of an old wool sweater. If you don't have any on hand (like me) you can usually pick some up for fairly cheap at a thrift store or garage sales. I happened to find a couple early this spring and since they were black and a gorgeous deep orange I knew they would be perfect to use this fall for my new baby!

First you will need to felt your sweaters. Throw them into a pillow case and tie a knot at the end. Wash them on hot with half the amount of detergent. Then throw the whole bag in the dyer. After drying, repeat the whole process! My black sweater shrank up a bunch so it only made a newborn sized pair of longies. My orange 100% Fine Merino in women's size medium felted just fine and still was soft and stretchy. I used this sweater to make a pair of longies which I would consider to be a size 6 to 9 months.

After felting cut the arms off the sweater.

You will need for the project:

• sleeves from wool sweater (already felted)
• elastic
• safety pin
• pair of pants in the size you want to make the longies into
• applique for the longies (I used my GO! Baby to cut mine out)

Measure the inseam of the pants.

Place a pin on both wool sleeves to your desired inseam to mark where you will need to cut down to.

Trim off the curve of the sleeves.

Cut down the seam to where your pin is marked.

Turn sleeves wrong side out.

Pin together the ends.

Sew together using an overlock or zig zag stitch.

 Fold down approximately 1.5 inches over waist elastic, tucking in raw edges. Pin around waist before sewing. Sew around the waist, leaving an inch opening to fix the elastic before sewing up.(FYI Since the pants are for a baby and aren't very wide I opt for just laying in the elastic, folding over the waist and tucking the raw edge under to sew instead of making a casing and threading it through.)

After sewing the casing, shorten the elastic to the desired fit. Cut off extra elastic and sew ends together.

Iron on your applique, then use a tight zig zag stitch around the edges and you are done! The GO! Baby made the perfect fall applique for my longies. The Fall Medley template also has another leaf design as well as a pumpkin. I would love to use the pumpkin on another pair of fall longies! You can read my full GO! Baby review here.

I made this pair of longies a bit longer in the legs and just rolled up the cuffs so they would fit Cole for a while.



And here's an 'action' shot! He's not standing up on his own yet so there isn't much 'action' in this photo ;-)

Felt Spinach Can Tutorial

Halloween is right around the corner and I have the boys costumes ready to go! I picked out Popeye and Swee' Pea costumes but decided they needed a little extra touch...spinach cans! These spinach cans were super easy and cheap to make. I know my spinach looks more like wavy green beans, but I wanted a dimensional look that was fast to create :-) I added 'crinkle' to the baby's can to it was more interesting to play with. Check out my tutorial below and look out for a Halloween costume giveaway within the next day or two!

You will need:

• 1 piece of gray felt
• 1 piece of dark green felt
• 1 piece of light green felt (or your choice of color for the label)
• 1 empty plastic disposable wipe bag
• handful of poly fill
• elastic (optional)

 Use a drinking glass to trace the size of can you prefer. You will need to trace out 3 gray circles and 1 dark green circle (not pictured). Then cut out a rectangle large enough for the main part of the can and a more narrow rectangle for the label. Use pinking shears to cut the top part of the can and 2 of the gray circles so it will have more of an opened up can look.

I cut a 6 1/2 piece of elastic to wrap around Cole's hand. This was mainly for taking photos so I wouldn't have to keep propping it up. Feel free to omit elastic.

First hand embroidery 'Spinach' on the label. I did this fairly quick because I wanted this to look more hand written than perfect lettering.

Pin the label on to the main part of the can and stitch. I used a decorative stitch.

Fold over elastic and pin to can edge.

Fold can in half with right sides together.

Straight stitch side.

Take 1 gray circle and use a couple pins to attach to edge.

Using a straight stitch on your sewing machine slowly sew circle to the main part of can to make the bottom of the can. Felt stretches nicely so you can stretch some as you go if you need to.

Turn wrong side out. Bottom of can is finished!

Cut ends of your disposable diaper wipe bag to make the 'crinkle' for the inside of the can. Lay the ends on your handful of poly fil.

Roll up and stuff into can.

Take another small piece of the wipe bag and fold up to put in the center of the 2 gray circles.

 

Pin together and stitch around edge.

If you omit the 'crinkle' you could sew around the top a couple more times to make it look more like a can lid, but I opted not to on this can so the 'crinkle' would work better.

Sew your completed lid to the inside of the can.

Next you need to cut 6 strips of dark green felt into stripes for the spinach.

Sew a few stitches in the middle of each strip to secure them to the circle Sew them on going in different directions, leaving the edges clear.

Hand stitch the Spinach circle to the inside of the can. I left  1/4 inch from the top.

All done!

Then it's time to give to your Swee' Pea and see what he thinks...

He may like it so much he tries to run off with it ;-)

And just one teaser photo until I post my costume review....