Quilt-As-You-Go Baby Bib Tutorial
It’s no secret that I love sewing up a batch of baby bibs to give as handmade baby shower gifts. They’re so sweet and simple and literally every new mom needs them! I tend to make them in pairs or threes with coordinating fabrics and keep a batch of each gender on hand for when I need a quick baby gift.
I recently wanted to explore the quilt-as-you-go technique, but I wanted to try it out on something small, rather than a large quilt of some kind. So I got out my trusty bib pattern and got to work making the sweetest set of heirloom quilted baby bibs!
You can watch the video tutorial to learn out exactly how to do this yourself. It’s really very easy, I think you’ll be surprised! Really, any small sewing project can be made into a quilt project. I love taking small things and trying out new quilt blocks and techniques on them without committing to an entire quilt, it’s one of my favorite things to do and the projects turn out to be among the best things I’ve made too.
The Free Baby Bib Pattern
The video tutorial above refers to the free bib pattern piece here on my site, and the original bib tutorial video I made for my YouTube channel. It’s one of the first videos I made, so I’m sure it’s not perfect, but it’s still a very popular one, so it’s near and dear to me! You can still grab that free bib template by clicking here, but you can also now purchase the entire printable version of the bib tutorial, withe the pattern and step-by-step instructions with photos, from my shop.
I’ve had some people comment on the original bib post over the years that it’s no longer free, but that’s not the case. I posted it free back then and you can still print the pattern piece and watch the video and make the bibs. The PDF version in my shop is just an easier way to refer back to the tutorial over and over without having to rewatch the video. Your purchasing pattern from my shop also supports what I’m doing here and I really appreciate it!
What is Quilt-as-you-go?
Quilting as you go means that instead of piecing the quilt block the usual way, you sew each piece onto the batting (and sometimes backing) at the same time! This saves a lot of time, since you don’t have to go back and quilt the piece later.
In my bib example, I’m constructing the little log cabin block directly onto the batting that goes inside the bib. This method can also be used for larger quilts, though you’ll want to look up some tutorials for the joining part — I find it rather abstract!
I haven’t used the quilt-as-you-go method on large quilts, but I really love it for small projects. So if you’re wanting to get your feet wet, the bib tutorial is a prefect place to start, and I think you’ll see how you can adapt this concept to all kinds of other small quilt projects as well.
I hope you enjoy making these quilted baby bibs! ! I have several other baby sewing tutorials on my YouTube channel, so I created a playlist for them, which you can watch here. And there’s an entire category in my shop for the patterns too.
Happy Sewing!
Nikki
