Before last week, it had never occurred to me to make a bib out of polar fleece. But, with nieces announcing babies coming, I was having fun thinking of gifts. One book that I found:
had patterns for cute little mittens, so I dug out my polar fleece scraps. Between that and other reading regarding homemade diaper options, it suddenly dawned on me that polar fleece might make a soft, cuddly bib using a pattern from this same book. The fabric is water repellent and strong. And Voila! Here we have it-
I suppose I could have come up with my own bib pattern, but I don’t have any little bodies around to measure, and while the bear makes a good model, the proportions are probably not close enough to design from. 🙂 Also, I appreciated the thought that went into this pattern, with the wider area across the shoulders and a side closure.
I will add a few tips for sewing: The polar fleece is trickier to get the bias tape around and the double layer at the bottom with the pocket would have been impossible without doing a zigzag over the seam allowance to flatten it.
I made my own bias tape and find that it is useful to iron one side of it slightly over the other, putting the wider half on the underside while sewing, so that I don’t have to worry about it catching on the underside while I’m sewing. My strips were 1 and 1/4 inch wide before I did any pressing, but if I do another on fleece, I might make the bias tape a smidge wider. A friend suggested putting some flannel on the front to add some absorptive qualities, but I didn’t want to cover up the smiling spiders on this one. I have some solid colors of polar fleece that I might use with that idea.
The bib is so soft, I almost wish I needed one! Here in Idaho, it can be chilly for 8 months of the year, so maybe there is a market for “winter bibs?”
