In the spirit of going absolutely crazy on the details for this party, I made a bib even better than last year's. I wanted something to fit in with the robot theme but I also wanted it to be a "2." I downloaded a bunch of cool fonts and then finally went with this one.
First, print out the number that best represents your kid's age. Make sure it's a good size to fit your bib (or shirt or whatever). Also iron some Wonder Under 805 to the back of your fabric. At the bottom of this post, I included a pattern for the shape I ended up using to make my number. What is pictured got manipulated to the point of no return so I traced it and scanned it in for anyone to use. It should be about 2" wide when printed.
Cut your shapes out. If you're using corduroy, make sure the nap is going in the right direction so that when you're wiping all that food off of it, it won't be too much of a mess. I like my nap downward pettable if that makes any sense.
Iron your shapes down so that they make your number. If you need some direction, take a look at your microwave, DVR, alarm clock, or just play around with it until it works.
If you iron really well with a really hot iron on both sides, your applique will probably last a year until you need a new one or it's so gross you throw it out anyway.
If you want a bib to last longer, use the zig zag stitch on your machine to tack all of the edges down. I go into great detail on this process in a tutorial you can read
here. I highly recommend that you do a few practice runs to get the length and width of your stitches figured out.
Enjoy with cake! More on the dress soon. Unfortunately it was freezing outside so we had to pair her cute robot dress with a long-sleeved t-shirt and leggings.
I bought the fabric and trim for this dress long before I had any idea that I was going to throw a robot party extravaganza. But since it takes me months to get around to any of my sewing projects, the robot party was a fresh idea when I was putting it together and it just seemed right to do some applique. The fabric is a white dotted swiss with yellow dots that I just adore.
The pattern is a vintage Simplicity pattern 6241 from 1974 (a great year, I must say). It was an absolute breeze to put together and it fits really well. As with most crew neck patterns, I had to take the collar down about 1". I also straightened out the curved lines at the side seams to make it more A-line.
The robot applique is my own design based loosely on the robots I was sewing for my Etsy shop back in 2006. I pasted the pattern below. You can read my applique tutorial in detail here. The embroidery is mostly a backstitch. I included the legs but as you can see, I used ric rack instead and it gives a really nice feel to the piece.
