Making Bibs

Bibs for Orliath

Over the weekend, I dug out the sewing machine. The funny thing is that I often get asked about ‘fixing’ things using my sewing machine, and the only time that I ever do get out the machine is if someone else asks me to do something for them. I’m not the world’s best at sewing, nor am I very fast at it. To be honest, it is my least favorite “crafty” thing to do, but if I have to I can do it. The result is that when the machine is out (about once every 6-8 months) I go through and “binge sew” on it – to repair everything that needs reparing, make what needs making, and then call it good. I then pack up the machine and it doesn’t see the light of day for another 6-8 months.

Bibs for Orliath

This time, I was asked to repair 4 bibs for Orliath, a gorgeous little girl who wears bibs daily. Sadly, she is confined to a wheelchair, and when I got the bibs, I ended up having to take them apart and remove the binding / ties and then re-sew and replace the binding. You see, the bibs that I was asked to repair are basically 2 pieces of poplin (cotton) fabric with a thin piece of plastic in between (they crinkle when they’re moved).

Bibs for Orliath

They were sewn with a single stitch on two fold binding tape around the outside edge. The end result was that they came apart after only a (relatively) few washings as the fabric shrank / stretched. It’s quite time consuming and challenging for me – with my limited patience and sewing experience.

Bibs for Orliath

After getting frustrated, I chatted to my mom, dad, and grandma (dad and grandma make quilts) and I posed the problem to them. They told me that it might be faster to make the bibs brand new – and sewn at least twice – once on the inside fabric pieces with a single stitch, and the other with zig zag stitch on the double sided bias tape to effectively give it 3 levels of stitching to “hold”. Once I had the concept – I decided that I could cut a bunch of fabric, and then properly put them together so that they’d need fewer repairs in the future. With the right fabric, I could also give something that’s waterproof and easy to clean – but also soft and not so noisy.

Bibs for Orliath

And so it began. I looked on eBay, and found something called PUL fabric – PUL stands for Polyurethane Laminate fabric – and the polyurethane is bound with soft t-shirt and microfiber (to eliminate the “crinkle noise) using an eco friendly adhesive. From here, I decided to try my hand at “creation” using the old bibs as an example. Using the old bibs as a “template” for size (you can see the red piece from one of the bibs I took apart), I started cutting out multiple triangles.

Bibs for Orliath

Then, I pinned and sewed the wrong sides together along the edges.

Bibs for Orliath

Bibs for Orliath

Trimming the excess fabric edges, I then pinned on the satin bias tape and made corners. Now, I went back and did the zig zag stitch over the edges.

Bibs for Orliath

Bibs for Orliath

The end result I think turned out pretty well in my opinion – Orliath ended out with 4 repaired bibs (top of the picture and 5 new bibs from scratch. They’re not perfect (I still have trouble sewing straight seams and keeping the bias tape even on both sides) but they will hold up to washing, chewing, and food – and that’s what counts.

Bibs for Orliath

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Sewing Class

Well, I did it. I finally broke down and bought a voucher to learn to sew with a sewing machine. The funny thing is that I’m not quite sure how I managed to make it for 30 something years without actually learning to use a sewing machine – my mom, dad, grandma, and great grandma all make quilts, clothes and so on. Somehow, however, when it came right down to my learning how to do this, I quite simply didn’t.

Mom would say it wasn’t for lack of trying. I can remember her offering to teach me several times and me just saying no thanks. My grandma, I know she did get me seated at her machine when I was knee high to a rattle snake – we made a pillow – but I was more interested in trying to go outside and play when I was about 5 years old than I was in learning how to sew something together. Dad – when I mentioned about the class, he said I really thought you knew – didn’t you take that as a class in school?

Well, I did take a home economics class in middle school (6 weeks to cram everything in from sewing basics, to cooking basics, to how to balance a budget and a checkbook). As I recall we did learn a few basic stitches – eg. learn to sew on a button, a snap and repair a hole. We also “learned” to use a foot treadle powered sewing machine – there were 3 for 30 students – for about 20 minutes in the basic course. Let’s just say that it didn’t stick. I’m not sure if I just didn’t learn, or if I didn’t remember because I didn’t want to learn – but modern machines are quite different than this treadle powered beast of a machine which we used.

Anyhow, I decided, after seeing a pile of trousers that needed hemmed (and spending 15 Euros each to have them hemmed) that it would be a great idea to finally learn to sew. The voucher came just in time, and was a basic 3 hour course at When Poppy met Daisy to learn to use a sewing machine. Me, H, and J all decided to attend, as a “girls night out” type event. We had to each pick out our fabrics – H chose a pink print with little hearts, J chose a fabric with cats and funny social networking quotes. I chose an abstract big flower print from ikea.

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The class covered the basics – from threading the machine, to creating a bobbin and bobbin thread.

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Once we learned the basic parts of the machine, the instructor started us out sewing on a piece of lined notebook paper – both a straight stitch and a zigzag stitch. The paper, because of lines, let us learn to sew straight lines. It also helped us to judge if we were going too fast / too slow (the paper would tear) or if we needed to adjust the tension higher or lower. Brilliant idea – as it wasn’t actually messing up any fabrics.

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Once we had mastered the straight lines, we moved on to some scrap fabric – sewing a basic hem. Then we moved on to the French Hem.

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Finally, we started on our project, combining all that we had learned together. It was a makeup bag, closing with a smidge of velcro. We had 3 happy girls by the end of the class – and I think that I’ll eventually go back and learn some additional stitching – like shirt or skirt making.

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On a side note, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a makeup bag, J decided it made a better hat than a bag.

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Well, I guess that’s one way to do it!!

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