This is the second baby bib I’ve embroidered in only six months! Now, I don’t want you to start thinking that it’s a little weird of me to start collecting baby bibs in my one-room student apartment (along with layettes and baby bottles and whatever else people hoard when expecting a baby). I made this for a brand-new sweet-cheeked little baby who was born last month! I am really looking forward to meeting the little thing and this will be my welcome-to-the-world gift.
After I made this bib a few months ago, I wanted to make several more but they are surprisingly expensive and I hadn’t even found a buyer for the first one yet. I had found it online and it had been delivered with a bigger, older brother I have yet to embroider. I was toying with the idea of covering the Aida fabric with different fruit and vegetables but I wondered if it wouldn’t look too busy with several different designs paired with a polka dot lining.
While I was letting my brain sort out that excruciating dilemma, a friend of the future parents called me and mentioned that she was decluttering her house and had a bunch of craft supplies I could go through before she donated the rest to charity. Needless to say, I rushed over and made sure to comb through the contents thoroughly. So many ideas came to me: a starry sky made with gold thread and black Aida fabric, embroidered strips of material to add to sleeves and collars, and a simple white bib that I would embroider for the baby that was due to arrive about a month later.
When I went abroad for Christmas (wondering why I hadn’t heard about the birth yet), I brought along my collection of threads and the appointed baby bib. I did not know if it would be a present for a boy or a girl and this made choosing the colours slightly complicated. I started out thinking that I would choose gender-neutral colours before realizing that none of my threads fit that description. While I think dressing boys all in blue and girls all in pink is maybe not the best parenting choice (because I know everything about it, of course), this was not my baby we were talking about here so I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable and spark a complicated debate about gender theory and who knows what.
After having spent about 45 minutes looking at colour combinations that just didn’t work (too vibrant, too clashy or too watery), I threw caution to the wind and chose the traditionally “girly” colours of pink and lilac paired with pale blue. To be frank, by that point I just wanted to get cracking so I pushed my previous concerns aside, thinking “there’s blue in there! It’ll be fine for a little boy if need be!”
I embroidered the zig zags peacefully while watching the Christmas episodes of Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey on Christmas and finished it on Boxing Day, which, incidentally, was the day when little Aimée was born. I think the stars aligned on that one!
I just love the idea that while I was debating thread colours, a little cutie pie was being born 10 000 km away. And incidentally, I think the colours I chose will suit her just fine!
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