Moistest Baby on the Block

There are post-meal traditions in various cultures. A genteel stroll around the village square, a small, strong, foul-smelling drink of something. A cup of herbal tea. Being not quite four months old yet, Cleo's not really ready for any of these. So she's working out her own way of easing the progress of her meal through her belly.

Unfortunately, her current method is to play and squeal and exercise until she barfs. It seems to work well for her: there's no distress involved, and she's still getting bigger by the day, but it is a bit of a laundry issue. Between the teething drool and the post-prandial eruptions, the top four inches of her shirt were almost always soaking. Enter the bibs. Enter all six presentable bibs she owns, sometimes all in one day. Enter the most bedraggled of the hand-me-down bibs. And then run out of bibs, and re-enter the least-soiled (and now dry) of the previous set. So, we need more bibs. I did what I do, and looked online (somehow, the kids thrift store doesn't have bibs. Too gross? I guess). And guess what? I'm both cheap and picky. We need a lot of bibs, and I don't want a bunch of bibs that have dumb sayings on them. I also don't want to spend eight bucks on each lousy (but attractive!) piece of cloth that's just designed to get between my daughter and her goop, and then be tossed in the laundry.

So I learned some things. I learned that Cleo's dad has a bunch of old white t-shirts that are surplus to requirements. I learned that machine-sewing comes under the category of Easy With Baby in the Sling (or at least Possible With Baby in the Sling). I learned that you don't need a serger to sew knits, and I learned that while Cleo's fascinated by the sound of the sewing machine when she's awake, she finds it intensely annoying when she's trying to sleep.

So, if you want to make your own bibs, you can do it this way: trace an existing bib onto an old t-shirt, leaving some extra space for the seam allowance. Pin the front and back of the t-shirt together, along the traced line. Using a zig-zag stitch (I'm not sure it's strictly necessary to zig-zag. But it sure is fun to say! Zig-zag! Zig-zag!), sew around the line, leaving one end open. Turn the bib inside out (actually right side out), and topstitch around the edge, closing the end you left open. Add ties or a snap or velcro. And then do that forty more times, and you'll have enough bibs for three days (so far, my homemade-bib-count is a grand and lofty One).