Recycled Subway Bag Bib

My family and I make a lot of four hour car trips to visit my parents and my in-laws in Vermont. The trip is long enough as it is, so stopping is avoided at all costs. Before we leave, we run to Subway to get sandwiches to eat in the car on the way up. My three year old daughter always gets the same thing: a kid-size turkey sandwich, apple slices, and milk. The meal comes in a cute little bag, and the bag designs change every few months. She has about ten of these bags with everything from penguins to the Eiffel Tower on them. I started thinking about what I could do with these bags because let's face it, why does she need ten little Subway bags?

This summer my daughter got a couple of the Little League Softball bags. I took a look at the tag inside the bag. They are made from 100% polypropylene. I did a little research on polypropylene and found out that it is BPA-free and phthalate-free. I immediately thought, "This would make a great baby bib." The material is water-resistant, and food will just wipe right off of it. So this is the result...

I used two Subway kid's meal bags to create the front. 

I used a seam ripper to tear out all of the seams (which was really quick work) until I was left with just the front pieces of the bags. 

I traced one of my 7-month-old's bibs onto a piece of paper and cut the pattern in half. I traced half the pattern onto one bag front, adding a quarter inch seam allowance. I then traced the other half of the pattern onto the other bag front, again adding the seam allowance, but I turned the bag 90 degrees to get the softball pattern running vertically instead of horizontally. I ended up with two pieces (one from each bag) for the front of my bib.

I sewed these two pieces together to form the front of the bib, traced the completed front onto the wrong side of a piece of cotton chenille, and cut out the chenille for the back.

I pinned the front to the back with the right sides facing, sewed around the outside, leaving the neckline open, then turned it right side out. Next, I created a length of 1" bias tape for binding the neckline and creating the ties. (Not sure how to make bias tape? Check out this tutorial from Prudent Baby.) Once I centered the bias tape and sewed it on the neckline, I cut the ties to the length that I wanted and knotted the ends.

The end result looks super cute...

Kind of patriotic looking... as American as baseball (or softball in this case) and apple pie!

Thanks for stopping by today! If you haven't already, don't forget to enter my appreciation giveaway. The giveaway ends this Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 11:59 PM (EST).

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