Remember when I made the little sproglet a set of carrot clothes in celebration of National Carrot Day a few months ago? And how I broke my sewing machine making the first of four planned bibs?

Well, the breakage turned out to be terminal, which was sad for my machine, but quite delightful for me as it gave me the excuse to buy myself a new one. (Footnote 1)

And, oh my god, do I love my new machine.

It’s a Janome DC3050 (recommended to me by Laura, blogger and photographer extraordinaire from Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows and Circle of Pine Trees). And, oh, the things it can do!

[If you’re already up with the latest sewing machine capabilities then please excuse me while I share my wonder at a newfangledness you already know about. You might want to meet me a few paragraphs down right about where the next photo is…] [For extra clarification by “latest” I probably mean as recently as just post invention of the loom.]

But, for those who are still here: it has auto tension! It has a thread cutter! It has computerised settings! It can sew a button hole for me! (This I’ve not yet tested, but I am imagining myself going downstairs to put the kettle on, while my lovely new sewing machine makes the button hole, and perhaps finishes off the rest of the garment for me, while I’m gone…) It has more stitches than I even knew existed, let alone have a clue how to use! And, perhaps least excitingly as a function, but best for my sewing, it has speed settings.

Speed settings have made sewing a curve a whole new experience. I whack the machine onto slow and find I can sew the most stunning curves you’ve ever seen. Turned out, all it took for my sewing skills to improve was to stop trying to go at the fastest speed imaginable, but just take my time to actually sew well instead. Hooda thunk?

So, now I have this wonderful new machine, I’m picking up the big unfinished sewing pile. It’s got various things for other people in it. Big things. Like a quilt that was for my sister for Christmas. And a first birthday present for a friend we visited in Ireland three weeks ago.

So, of course, the first thing I attempted was by far the least pressing: the incomplete bibs.

I’m working on getting my bib pattern into pdf form (footnote 2) so I can write it up here with a tutorial, but in the meantime I thought I’d share a few pictures of the seven bibs I’ve made.

I did three in some nice colourful fabrics.

The tortoise fabric is called Tortoise Grass and is by Urban Zoologie. I think this is my favourite bib. There’s something about the fabric design that just works well in bib form.

The ever-appealing Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric is by Andover fabrics. It’s stocked in various places (I have a feeling I bought mine from eBay, but it was a while ago, so I can’t be sure…)

This rather gorgeous fabric with trees and snails is from Critter Community and is called Bermuda (I think that’s the right way round. It might be called Critter Community and be from the Bermuda collection perhaps). Whichever, it’s by Robert Kaufman fabrics.

The other four bibs were made from an old white shirt, with images ironed onto the front. (If you want to know more about doing this, check out my tutorial for ironing printed images to fabric…)

I think this cabbage is my favourite of these bibs. The image is from Clip Art etc: cabbage image.

The carrots (as I mentioned last time) are from the Graphics Fairy, here: carrot image.

The courgettes are also from the Graphics Fairy: courgette image. Though, I have to say, I think this image works least well on the bibs: the shape just seems wrong with the bib shape. It’d be great used as a pickling label as suggested though…

And the little red mushroom is as well: mushroom image.

So, seven extra bibs should see us through, ooooh, an extra day and a half before we have to run the washing machine. Now it’s onto the important stuff. Next stop the first birthday present…

Footnote 1: Don’t feel too sad for my broken, unloved machine though. It went to a new home through Freecycle, probably to someone who will love and nurture it back to life and then treat it far better than I ever did.

Footnote 2: For “working on” read instead “asking my boyfriend to sort it out for me…”

Related articles

• See more things I’ve made with transferred images: there’s a step-by-step tutorial to transferring images to fabric, a few further tips and hints and a couple more T-shirts as well. Plus, the original post about the carrot clothes.
• Take a look at my tutorials page for some other projects…

I’m linking this project up at I heart naptime, Serenity Now, the Shabby Nest, the Shabby Creek Cottage, Beyond the Picket Fence and Brag Monday at the Graphics Fairy. Head over to see what others have made this week.