Craftgrrl - Where Crafters Unite!

I took some hand towels that we rarely use anymore, as well as a couple I found at thrift stores, and I made a bunch of baby bibs.
( Pictures are under a cut )
I also have some I have simply decorated with leftover ribbon. I looked at several different tutorials for towel bibs, and put a few ideas together from each for what works best for me. I kept the work to a minimum where I could, since I ended up embroidering a lot of them. Decorating with ribbon is even easier, though. I took the hand towel, and using a cd, I traced where the hole for the head would go. I made sure the front was longer but that there would be room in the back to go over the shoulders. I then took some old t-shirt scraps I saved, and I made tubed ribbing. I cut the strips about 13" long by 3.5"-4" wide. I wasn't super exact, I just wanted them wide enough that it would be easy to turn them. I then sewed them together lengthwise. After that, I turned them right side out. You can do this with ribbing fabric, but I just happened to have old t-shirts so it was double the recycle for me. Once I had them in a tube, I sewed the edges together to make it easier to work with. Then I pinned them all around the circle (the right side) I'd cut out of the towel. Pin pin pin! You should have to tug the ribbing a little to make it fit all the way around. I don't serge, as some tutorials suggest, nor did I divide mine into fourths, as most of them suggested. I just used the trusty zig zag stitch and went all the way around it. Sew somewhat slowly, as you want to pull the ribbing taut here and there so that you have it fit right once it is sewed on. 

Sorry it's not such a great tutorial. I'd have taken pictures in steps had I known I'd be entering a craft contest. But as I mentioned, I googled the tutorials and took a little information from several different places to see which one worked for me. These are super useful bibs, and long lasting. Even though it's all recycled, (and sometimes because it's all recycled,) people are always really happy to get these as baby shower gifts.