How To Make a Bib With a Cricut Explore Air 2 | DIY | Sewing

Hey guys! So, my older kid pretty much never wore a bib, so we didn't really have any on hand. Baby E, however, is a little puke monster, so we find ourselves needing them this time around. I decided to try my hand at making them, and was surprised at how easy it ended up being. 

I used fabric I had on hand, and another old baby towel from the donate box. (We were given SO MANY and we just use regular towels! So, I'm finding more and more creative ways to use them). The coolest part about this project, though, is I cut the main fabric using my Cricut Explore Air 2! I was under the impression that the Air series didn't cut fabric, but it does-- it just needs to be bonded with something like Heat & Bond. I don't have pictures of this step but the gist of it is: iron the Heat & Bond to the back of your fabric, peel the paper backing off and stick it on to your standard grip mat. Use the 'bonded fabric' setting on the Cricut.   

From there, it's a standard project as if you'd cut the fabric out with a normal pattern. I used the Cricut cut piece as a pattern to cut out the towel backing fabric. It shed and made a huge mess so I'm really glad that I didn't try that on the Cricut as well. The Heat & Bond adds some weight to the fabric, so if you don't use it, you might want some other sort of interfacing or something. 

 Place the fabrics right sides together, and sew, leaving a gap at the bottom center for turning. This step was the one downside to using the Head & Bond -- the fabric dragged on the presser foot really badly. I'm sure there has to be some way around this, because it's a common sewing product, but I struggled. The curves aren't too bad, even at the neck straps where it's more narrow.

Trim any excessive fabric around the edges, and turn right side in. Then topstitch around the entire bib, closing up the gap you left. Try to keep the bottom fabric pulled back so that the front looks cleaner.

Once that is done, you can either sew on velcro, or do what I did and somehow neglected to take pictures of, and use KAMSnap pliers and snaps. I prefer these snaps to the ones I would buy at the fabric store because they're plastic and easier to snap than the metal, and also because of the million colors they come in to coordinate.

And that's basically it! I'm probably going to end up whipping up 4 or 5 more of these throughout the week, so find me on instagram (@technicolor-moments) to see the rest.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here, shoot me an email at technicolormoments [at] gmail [dot] com or tweet me @jennplusn.

thanks for reading :)