10 minute bib

As soon as your baby starts to eat solid foods you learn that you can never have too many bibs. Never. Now that my little guy can feed himself some little bites the messes have gotten even bigger. Now little chunks of food end up on his clothes, in the highchair, on the floor; you name it, he gets food on it. I really wanted a bib with a pocket to catch at least some of those crumbs but I didn't feel like going out in the heat to buy one. Plus, I had a perfectly usable plastic tablecloth in a drawer that doesn't fit our current dining table so I decided to whip up the bib of my dreams. Well, almost. The bib of my dreams would look a lot like a Hazmat suit covering my little guy from head to toe and would be self-cleaning. But that's another topic.

Here's the plastic tablecloth I started with. I'll be honest, it's not very boyish but my little guy doesn't know the difference and it will be covered in food in no time anyway. And now if we have a snack in a shimmery forest he'll be camouflaged. The great thing about using the plastic tablecloth is that the plastic won't fray so I didn't have to do any hemming or extraneous sewing. And the back was covered in a fuzzy fabric that he likes against his skin.

I started by folding over one edge of the tablecloth and tracing a pattern piece for the front of a t-shirt that I had on hand because I wanted the bib to cover whatever he's wearing entirely. I added about two extra inches of length to the shoulder pieces so they would fit around his neck. You could trace any shirt that fits your baby though if you don't have a pattern piece to use.

I also cut two pieces of fabric the same width as the bib to use for the pocket. Since only one side of the tablecloth was plastic I needed two pieces to make a plastic lined pocket. I squared off one of the pieces so the sides were all straight and sewed the two with right sides together. Only sew three of the sides together so the pocket can be turned right side out. I trimmed up the sewed pocket to eliminate extra fabric.

Here's the inside of my pocket.

Now I was ready to pin my pocket to the bib. I pinned the open side of the pocket to the bottom of the bib so I could sew through all three layers at once.

I wrapped the raw pieces of the straps around my little guy's neck and used a Sharpie to mark where I wanted the Velcro to go. Make sure you line up the Velcro so that the pieces will overlap completely for the strongest closure.

I used this fabric fusion Velcro even though I wasn't going to iron it on since I was using plastic fabric. I like this stuff because it has a sticky back so it stays in place while you sew it on since it's all but impossible to pin on small pieces of Velcro.

I used some ribbon scraps I had to make two ties to hold the bib in place. (I got this idea from my friend Susannah.) My little guy thinks it's funny to lift his bib up and rub the mess onto his face or to try and rip it off completely mid meal.

 

 There you have it. A crumb-catching pocket, some Velcro, and two ribbon ties. How simple is that? This really would have taken me ten minutes if I hadn't had to start and stop to wrangle my little guy. I had to forgive his fussiness though since he was such an accommodating, and cute, little model in the end.