Baby Bibs

I'm currently working on two baby bibs for lil man.  One is a Valentine's Day inspired creation of tattoo-like hearts inscribed with Mom and Dad.

The other is a nod to his UFC-loving Daddy - a skull with the words TAP OUT using Jenny Hart's Tattoo Alphabet .

I love them both separately but equally.

The Tap Out bib was relatively easy to transfer and stitch.  I've got some learning to do in stitching letters, but overall I'm happy with this design.  I'd love a smoother satin stitch, I think it will come with more practice and experience.  I've learned that one or two strands at a time make a much smoother satin stitch.

The Tattooed Hearts bib was much more trouble, but in the end is proving to be worth the pain.  I first tried to transfer the patterns manually.  Using Jenny Hart's Tattoo Your Towels patterns, I thought I could just cut and lay them out to create what I saw in my own mind's eye.  The result was not pretty.

But I was not to be discouraged.

I had previously scanned the transfers into pdf format before I began working with them.  I used Adobe Photoshop to arrange on the computer what I had dreamed up.

I was in love.

I then took some time to trace the design with colors, outlining my pattern and arranging a color scheme.

I printed the pattern, scaled it to the right size for the bib.  I bought some transfer paper and a hot iron transfer pencil.

I traced the pattern on the translucent paper, then flipped the paper over and used the hot iron transfer pencil to retrace the design on the back.

This worked okay, but the transfer was still not dark or clear.  The fabric is a very thick terry cloth material, so it is the best it's going to get, I believe.

The bibs are a very good, absorbent quality I bought at Toys-R-Us.  I stitched them with a full six strand, so that the floss did not get lost in the terry cloth, except for the lettering and satin stitches.  I used 2 strands for that.  The clothe was sometimes hard to poke the needle through, but overall I am happy with the bibs. 

I do like that I can now reuse this pattern over and over again.  All I need to do is retrace the design with the hot iron transfer pencils before reusing it for a new project.  I also like that I have scraps left from the paper I cut the pattern from to use for smaller designs.

I don't care for the red transfer which ends up being a light pink on the fabric as I work, but there was no black available.

I'm hoping to finish the hearts design tonight so that I can have it ready for lil man this weekend when we go make the trek to Minnesota.

Update:

And it's done.  Finished it last night around 10:30, washed, dried, snapped a quick pic this morning.