Fun with Flannelette

Nope, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth but yes, it sure is tricky finding the time to sew with a new baby.  And when I do find the time to sew, everything I sew is for the baby. For example, here is a simple bib that I made for Adam using a cute flannelette I picked up at the new Len's Mill store on Orfus Road by Yorkdale (and by the Fabricland!)  It was really straight-forward as I just roughly traced out one of the bibs we got as a hand-me-down for him.  I don't like buttons located directly behind the neck though because I find them a hassle to do/undo when he's lying down (this goes for clothing as well as bibs).  So, as you can see I just shifted the opening for his neck so that it closes off to one side and used snap buttons for a quick finish.

The bib is reversible with the same flannelette on both sides. For a bit of added absorbency I took the extra fabric cut out from the centre of the bib (for the neck hole), cut it in half (to create semi-circles) and sewed it into the bib between the outer layers where his chin would normally lie.  That way I didn't waste the fabric and hopefully the bib acts as an even better drool catcher.

I was originally going to cheat with the binding and just pin it around the perimeter, then top-stitch the whole thing in place. However after seeing how narrow the binding was I figured it would be challenging (and messy) to get clean stitch lines that caught the binding on both sides of the bib.  Therefore I had to go with the more proper (but tedious) approach of sewing one side into the bib with the machine, then hand-stitching the opposite side. This takes a lot more time but is very clean because all the stitch lines are invisible.

Stitching the first side with the Singer

Binding is complete

Finally I hammered in the snap buttons to finish off the bib. I love using snap buttons because they don't involve making button holes which aren't the easiest to do on the old Singer.

And after finishing off two identical bibs I went ahead and completed some burp cloths and a receiving blanket with the extra fabric.  Now Adam has a cute, matching set :)

And just to show how tricky it can be to find the time for sewing, here are some photos of me making the most of my quiet time.  I'm taking in a pair of jeans that needed tailoring before I was even pregnant but I was too lazy to get around to it last year. Then Adam was on the way and I said bye-bye to denim for several months. Now that I'm back in jeans I might as well get them to fit the way I want them to, right? Right! 

How did this fella sleep through the clunkety-clunk of the Singer??