Liberty Baby Bibs!
Joelle was in California recently, visiting her adorable new niece Bobbie Rae. She noticed that Bobbie was using a lot of bibs, and that the most effective were super absorbent. When she came back to New York she had the idea that we should design a bib that was both beautiful and totally useful.
As you might have noticed by now, when we want to make something truly special and beautiful, we often turn to Liberty of London's Tana Lawn. The lovely detailed prints on this fabric are legendary! Its silky hand is soft enough for a very precious baby gift, but strong enough to stand up to repeated washings.
To add absorbency we decided to back the bibs with Michael Miller 100% Organic Cotton Terry, which is another perennial favorite at Purls Soho. We just love the combination of these two fabrics so we decided to pick out multiple colorways and our Liberty Baby Bib Kits were born! We hope you'll agree that they'll make perfect baby shower gifts!
These bibs are a breeze to sew, you could easily make a whole set in one afternoon!
Materials
- One Purl Soho Liberty Baby Bib Kit, available here. Kit includes two fat eights of Liberty of London Tana Lawn, a half yard of Michael Miller 100% Organic Cotton Terry, four large nickel plated snaps, 100% cotton thread from Gutermann to match the Tana Lawn, complete instructions and a Liberty Baby Bib template. The colors above, clockwise from the top left are: pink, yellow, blue, red.
You will also need:
- A fabric marker, such as blue tailor's chalk, a water soluble fabric fen or even a regular pencil.
- scissors
- hand sewing needle
If you'd like to make your own version of our Liberty Baby Bibs you can find the pattern template right here.
Marking
Assemble and cut out the Liberty Bib Template.
Cut each of the Liberty of London Tana Lawn pieces in half so you have two 9-inch by 13 1/4-inch pieces from each pattern. Press these pieces.
Trace the bib template on the wrong side of each of these pieces. It can sometimes be hard to tell which is the wrong side of the Tana Lawn because of it's ultra saturated printing so be careful in this step.
Make sure to transfer the markings on the upper left hand corner of the template to the fabric. These are the gap markings.
Sewing and Cutting
Pin the Tana lawn to the Terry Cloth right sides together around the perimeter of the markings. (The right side of the Terry Cloth is the fuzzy side.)
Then cut the Terry cloth to be a little bigger than the Tana Lawn piece.
Starting at the bottom gap marking sew the Terry and the Lawn together along the marked line. Stop sewing at top gap marking making sure to leave the 1-inch gap in-between the markings unsewn.
Here is a close-up of the unsewn gap.
Cut the bib shape out roughly 3/8-of an inch from the outside of the sewn edges.
Snip off the corers at the right angles by the neck and snip vertically into the seam allowance in a few places along the neck and bottom curves to make turning the bin easier.
Finishing
Turn the bib right sides out through the gap.
Press the raw edges of the gap inside and press the whole bib flat with the Tana Lawn pulled just over the bottom and side edge and the Terry Cloth pulled just over the neck edge so it's peaking out a bit at the top. Pin the entire perimeter of the bib in this manner.
Here is a more close up shot of the edges with the Tana Lawn rolled slightly over the bottom edge and the Terry Cloth rolled slightly over the neck edge.
Top stitch along the entire perimeter of the bib with a scant 1/4-inch seam allowance. This will close the gap.
Hand sew the snaps onto the back of the neck as directed on the snap package. Center the snap at each neck flap, a 1/4-inch from the end of the flap.
Repeat these steps for the other three pieces of Tana Lawn and you'll be all done!
purl bee
Reader Comments (19)
Great Pattern...LOVE it...
x Tam
One thing I would add - I would say the wash the fabric first with a non-perfumed detergent, in hot hot hot water with no fabric softener. (Dreft ,7th Generation, ECO are all good) Bibs get stuff on them, and baby stuff is generally cleaned in hot water, so treat the fabric that way now so any shrinkage happens before sewing. Also, baby skin can be VERY sensitive. My own little girl's skin would redden when friends held her against their clothing that had been washed with regular detergent or with a fabric softener. Prewashing means they can be used right away on that soft delicate skin!
Thanks for the pattern.
Thanks!
I love these and I'm just going to have a go but i'm new to sewing and I wonder if you could explain to me what it means to top stitch all around the perimeter of the bib please? Is this something that can be done on a sewing machine or do I do it by hand?
Thanks!
To topstitch around the perimeter, sew through all layers of the bib a scant 1/4-inch from the edge all the way around the bib. You will be using your machine's regular straight stitch. The term "topstitching" just means that you are sewing on the top of the piece so that the seam will be visible.
Thanks for the great question and let us know if you need any other help.
I just like to say I LOVE YOUR SITE.
I'm new to crafting so your site has given me alot of inspirations.
Your pictures and instructions has made it really easy for me to recreate your projects.
Thank you!!!!!
I am about to make these for a new baby gift. I realized that the Tana Lawn fabric instructions state no tumble drying. I'm fairly certain these will be thrown in the dryer after they are gifted so I want to pre-wash and pre-dry. Has anyone tried tumble drying the Tana fabrics? Will it ruin them?
Thank you!
If you wash and tumble dry the fabrics before you sew the bibs you will be just fine. I wash and dry Tana Lawn all the time : )
Thanks for the question- Molly
I think these would fit a smaller baby better actually, like under a year. But you could easily make it a little bigger by blowing up the pattern on your printer or copy machine. Perhaps you could try making them 20% bigger and seeing if that looks right?
Thanks for your question- Molly
Thanks for your excellent patterns and directions. I made 5 of these precious little bibs yesterday. I made one modification. The opening where you turn the bib right side out was a bit tight and tricky to pull the cloth through. I lengthed the opening to 1 1/2 inches and it was a lot easier.
Re: The gap, I agree that it was too tight and I didn't like the location so I moved my gap to the bottom hem and made it about 2 inches. Since it's a straight line to topstitch there, it ends up looking fine and it's not tricky at all.
I also wanted to suggest that you modify your PDF, if possible, and arrange it so that your name and URL go INSIDE the bib so when the pattern is cut and taped together, your URL stays with the user instead of being thrown away. Nice to have that for later when you pull the pattern out of the sewing box and say to yourself, now where did I get this from?
:D:D:D
You site is lovely, and it reminds me of my visit to New York and your new store location a couple of years ago.