Tallinn after the rain

Tallinn, Estonia, is one of the most famous abroad destinations for Finns and expats living in Finland. "Abroad", as I should probably write in quotation marks, because almost any one from Helsinki has been to Tallinn at least few times in his life. 

Tallinn with its proximity to Helsinki makes the perfect destination for a short family weekend, a nice party trip with friends or just a place you would like to visit for literary a delicious lunch.  The trip to Tallinn takes in worst case 2,5 hours one direction with a ferry, and during the summer you can reach the city from Helsinki in a bit over an hour.

The trip with the ferry complements a nice walk you will most probably have in the Old Town Tallinn, no matter of the weather. In general, Tallinn offers you the opportunity to enjoy its authentic atmosphere, with medieval pubs, taverns, crafts shops and markets, old protestants temples and shiny orthodox churches together with new and lustrous architecture and shopping malls accompanied with the sound of the old trams and a hint of remembrance of the Soviet Union's cultural heritage along with the country's constant thrive to wash away its historical existence. But to my humble opinion all of this has already weaved in the city's atmosphere and any part of it has nicely found its place amusing tourists and visitors. And because of it, you can visit Tallinn hundreds of times, and you will still find something new or something unexplored. And all of this in a small capital city with less than half a million population, Tallinn definitely worth visiting.

Our family had wonderful time in the city, and although it was a rainy day and occasionally rained cats and dogs, it could not ruin our lovey family walk. Supplied with rain coats, rubber boots and a rain cover for the push chair, we still enjoyed both rainy and post rainy Tallinn, with the charming glimmers of the rain drops and the water puddles on the cobble streets. And oh, the smell of the rain... 

I am loquacious, as you notice and can go on writing about Tallinn, but instead I'll let you have a look at some of the pictures made there. And I hope that next time you consider a destination to travel to, my random ramblings about the beauty of a city charmingly combining the cultural sensibility of the North and East, will help you remember Tallinn.  

I am sure Tallin will welcome you warmly.

Tere tulemast or "Welcome" in Estonian! 

The crafts market in Old Town Tallinn

Pubs, taverns, and protestants temples in Old Town Tallinn

The view above in Old Town Tallinn

The square in Old Town Tallinn - perfect tourists' destination

Pub in Old Town Tallinn

Charming café waiting for its customers in the labyrinth of cobble streets of Old Town Tallinn

Souvenirs shop in Old Town Tallinn 

Our family walk in Old Town Tallinn 

Crocheted basket from tricot yarn

Few months have passed since my last post. Summer is usually a busy season for us, as we travel outside Finland in July or August, and while in Finland we would like to collect as much sun as possible, so our family stays outside quite a lot. And all this unfortunately means no time for posting, but luckily enough it still means time for crafting.

This June I managed to complete a late birthday gift to a friend - a crocheted tricot yarn basket. Although two months late (oops!), the basket turned out quite nice and it was a good compensation (according to her reaction) for the time she had to wait for her birthday gift. Well, it's one of a kind :), so compensatory enough, I think :))... (oh, modest me!).  

But enough about me, more about this lovely basket by Me. :)))) 

You'll be curious to know that this basket even though its huge size, stitches wise, it's not a lot bigger than another basket project of mine - the Paper Straw Yarn Crocheted Basket. The inspiration for this basket came from Liz's wonderful blog - Crochet in color, although I used different yarn (tricot yarn) I did use her technique for the bottom of the basket. And one more difference, the bottom of the basket I made was single crochet stitches only. As a matter of fact the whole basket is single crochet stitches only. 

So pretty much the basics: 

The size of the tricot yarn crocheted basket

Needed: 

• around a kilogram of thick tricot yarn (I had a little left over). And mind the thickness of the tricot yarn, as this way the basket will stay firm and erected. Also before buying tricot yarn, check its flexibility and stretchability, the less it stretches, the firmer the basket will be. 
• a crochet hook size 11.5 (American size 16)
• around two weeks of an hour a day crocheting 

and the pattern: 

Bottom: 

Rnd 1: 6 sc in a circle. Join with sl st.

Rnd 2: Ch 2 sc in each st. Join with sl st. (12 hdc)

Rnd 3: Ch 2 sc in same st, sc in next st * around (or 2 sc in every second st). Join with sl st. (18 sc)

Rnd 4: Ch 2 sc in same st, sc in next 2 sts, complete *times around (or 2 sc in every third st). Join with sl st. 

Rnd 5: Ch 2 sc in same st, sc in next 3 sts, complete *times (or 2 sc in every fourth st). Join with sl st. 

Rnd 6: Ch 2, sc in same st, sc in next 4 sts, complete *times (or 2 sc in every fifth st). Join with sl st. 

Rnd 7: Ch 2, sc in same st, sc in next 5 sts, complete *times (or 2 sc in every sixth st). Join with sl st. 

The process of crocheting a tricot yarn basket

Rnd 8: Ch 2, sc in same st, sc in next 6 sts, complete *times (or 2 sc in every seventh st). Join with sl st. (64 hdc)

Rnd 9: Ch 2, sc in same st, sc in next 7 sts, complete *times (or 2 sc in every eight st). Join with sl st. (72 hdc)

The bottom of the tricot yarn crocheted basket

Rnd 10: For completing the bottom, as mentioned I've used Liz's technique, and I would recommend her explanations, for many reasons, but mainly that I could not possibly explain them clearer. 

Basket: 

Rnd 11- 20: Ch 1 sc in the same st  all around. Join with sl st. Repeat *.  

Rnd 21: Ch 1 sc in the same st  in 11 st around, ch 12 chs over the basket and join over with sc in the 10th sc on the edge of the basket (this will make the handles of the basket. If this explanations if not clear enough, I apologize).  Ch 1 sc in the same st in the next 21 st around and then ch 12 chs and join over with sc in the 10th sc on the basket. Ch 1 sc in the same st  in 11 st around. Join with sl st. 

Rnd 22: Ch 1 sc in the same st *times around (over the handles as well). Join with sl st and complete. Cut the yarn. 

A tricot yarn crocheted basket can be very handy used for storing pretty much anything

And this was it. The basket turned out quite nice and spacious. I am actually planing to make a bit bigger one for my daughter's toys, and may be next time try a square one. I hope all instructions were comprehensible (if not please ask), as I have said before, I am still learning. Good Luck to all!

Spring project: Knitted pots from recycled tin cans

It is spring! Although in Finland we might need to wait a bit more to actually feel it. Spring is usually late in Finland, but this year particularly very veeeeery late. So, while waiting for it, I decided to encourage its appearance at least at our home. 

And how? By adding extra green and colors in my kitchen and balcony always helps me feel like spring might be coming soon. So this is what I did - extra green and colors or in other words spring flowers (usually we buy narcissus but this year I got as a gift  very nice dark pink flowers, that make me smile a lot too) and grass. Yes grass! While waiting for spring with its flowering appearance people in Finland sow grass in pots in inside - quite traditional around Easter, mainly to celebrate Spring. I like that tradition, although it took me few years to adopt that habit, but now I am quite frequent. 

This spring, I decided to do something different - to plant my grass in recycled tin cans and knit nice covers for the pots. 

Transforming a tin can into a lovely knitted pot

I am huge fan of recycling (even fanatic I may say) and when I saw this idea on Etsy, I had to do it too. 

To my opinion tin cans are just perfect for almost any crafting, knitting, painting, baking....project. And this looked like an excellent way to practice five needles knitting, so basically my initial reaction was: 'Oh! what am I waiting for?'. 

So I got the tin cans, the yarn - Kelo by Novita - a very popular brand in Finland, number 7 bamboo needles by Hemtex, the patterns and there was I - knitting the tin cans some socks :).  

I would like to come back to the bamboo needles topic, because as a beginner hobby knitter I have heard quite a bit about bamboo needles and decided to try myself. Those that I bought, were cheap, I admit but they worked perfect for me. Smooth service, easy to handle, in general quite nice. As a complete beginner, I can recommend them. I kind of liked the nice 'warm' touch they have compared to metal knitting needles. But that could be just me. :)))) 

Knitted pots for tin cans

For both pots I cast on 28 stitches. One of the patterns was a simple exercise of cable knitting. The other one, I got from a blog called "Watch Knitting" by Fariba Zahed. As a beginner I do watch a lot of instructions and videos about knitting and her blog and Drops Desing's videos are one of the best. Definitely worth looking at them - it's knitting made easy for any one :).  So the pattern I used for the other one of the tin can socks is called: Hexagonal pattern and even though it might look difficult it's rather easy to make. 

Here are the instructions from Fariba's site, with an tiny addition - point 9, by me: 

Row 1)  2 knits, 2 purls,… up to the end

Row 2)  knit and purl as they appear,…up to the end

Row 3)  2 knits, 2 purls,…up to the end

Row 4)  2 knits, 2 purls, * then insert right needle between 6th and 7th stitches in the left needle from front side,while the yarn is behind the work, and turn yarn around the right needle and pull it out .Now knit the pulled yarn with the first stitch in the left needle and continue with one more knit, then 2 purls, 2 knits. here the first line is complete. Then purl 2 more stitches and repeat from *

NOTE: no matter of how many stitches you have and with which stitch you have started , the pulled yarn will cover (2knits+2purls+2knits )

Row 5,6,7 ) knit and purl as they appear,…up to the end

Row 8 ) (2 knits, 2 purls) twice, then repeat from *

Row 9) Start from row 1 again on every ninth row. This way the pulled yarn will advanced in in chess-board order.

You can watch the video in You Tube too.

 Hexagonal pattern on the left, cable knitting on the right 

Knitted pots close-up

Recycle, knit, grow..... 

This is really a great project to bring spring to your home, it takes around two weeks to see the grass coming out, but it definitely worth to wait. Of course, instead of grass you can plant herbs, some blossoming plans, or anything that requires a small pot. And the 'tin can socks' can be various colors or patterns. I happen to like white quite a lot. 

Good Luck! 

Paper Straw Yarn Crocheted Basket

Crocheted basket from paper straw yarn

Every day I learn something new. This time is was a surprisingly easy and lovely way to crochet baskets. My neighbour had this great tricot yarn crocheted baskets so I just asked her once where she bought them from.  "I made them. It's very easy. I'll show you if you want." was her answer. So one day, here she was at our home with a crochet hook and tricot yarn. Took few repetitions of the beginning, but here was - I crocheting  a basket. 

A week later, while looking for a suitable yarn for another basket, I saw the paper straw yarn and had this image in my head of a hand-made crocheted basket. So, I bought yarn and the result of my efforts was simply lovely.  

Lovely hand-made paper straw yarn crocheted basket

The pattern I used is the only one I can crochet :) so far, and because I am just starting with the abbreviations in crocheting, I did a little search to find one, if some one is interested to make a basket of his/ her own. 

All in all needed materials:

• Size 3 crochet hook
• Paper straw yarn
• 5 hours of your time :) 

Paper straw yarn crocheted basket - bottom in and out 

The patterns can be seen here - but for this basket I advanced the bottom only until round 10 from the instructions and the basket is around 10 cm tall. It took me around 5 hours to make it, as I needed to take some breaks. The paper straw yarn is very hard and it harms your fingers if you keep crocheting longer.

As this was a gift, I made a little crocheted daisy for a decoration (again within my abilities skills). Here you can find instructions from you tube, how you can crochet a daisy yourself. 

Paper yearn crocheted basket and daisy

I tied the daisy to the basket and it made a lovely gift. 

DYI paper straw yarn crocheted basket - an excellent way to store anything that can't find a place for.

Enjoy!

Vintage Stories Photos Makeover

I have been planning this post for over a month, and I realized I am not ready with it. There is so much to do for it so I thought that I might need to make few small post. 

What it is all about you might wonder? Well, lately I have been having these ideas for vintage decoration in my head, so I have been trying to let my ideas crystallize before they make an appearance. 

I don't know why, but this spring has brought me ideas in black and white, wrapped with fine and transparent laces.... 

I spent some time looking for ideas and materials for vintage decoration in thrift shops. To my opinion thrift shops provide great opportunities to find necessary old and vintage supplies that help your imagination let go. Once I was happy with the hunt, then it was a little bit of cutting, sewing and assembling. The project was done in no time, with the taking of the pictures but then, I again let my imagination go with the images. Took a bit to get what I wanted from the first images, which you can see down, but I realized that it will take too much time to publish the whole post. 

So here they come the first "Vintage Stories" images. I tried to achieve a vintage and old look of the images. Whether I have succeeded or not it is you to judge.  I know I am far from professional, but I sure enjoyed the process. And this was achieved without using Photoshop software! Wait till I master that one :))))). 

Vintage look Photo Makeover - lace box and a vase with dried "lily of the valley" flowers

For the written quotation in this image, I used Marilyn Monroe's quote about life, love and companionship. I find it quite suitable, true and inspirational. 

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”  ― Marilyn Monroe

Vintage Photo look - roses and lace

Vintage Makeover Shots - roses and lace in two colors 

Vintage Makeover - a vase and a lace box  -BW and color  (stress on the orange)

Photography Vintage Colorful Makeover - roses and lace in orange and red

Vintage Makeover Photo - a dried flowers vase and a lace box - color

This will be the end of part one of the spring "Vintage Stories". I will be back soon with the second one. If any reader has some comments about the images, please do not hesitate to share them. 

Thank you! With wishes for a Vintage Spring Story :) on your way! 

DYI Muffin liner paper flowers

Muffin liner flowers

I like flowery themes in general quite a lot - vibrant bright colors and wonderful combinations of shapes as well. You can't go wrong with choosing flowers for your crafts projects, they almost always provoke a smile.  

Colors is exactly what I need at the beginning of spring to keep me survive through the last weeks of snow. Yes, I said snow and weeks :) as Finnish spring usually makes an appearance around mid April or early May, so I have few more weeks left for flowers crafting :) to try to sustain my spring anticipation.

So here it is a "give-me-smile" project with paper flowers from muffin or cupcake liners. This project, I made for our friends daughter's sixth birthday, and hearing her "Wow!" was more than enough reward. 

If I need to rate the difficulty level of this project, I would probably say it is intermediate, not because it is challenging to complete, but because it requires some time and patience. But I promise that the result will totally worth it. 

So here it comes the needed materials: 

Needed materials for muffin liners paper flowers

Colorful muffin / cupcakes liners

green paper for the stems and the leaves

grill sticks for the stems 

fast drying glue and/ or glue gun

scissors

pencil for drawing leaves

puncher with flower shape

Optionally:  congratulatory sign, metal tin 

I have prepared three picture tutorials how to create the (1) flowers petals, (2) the stems and (3) the leaves. I hope that they will be explanatory and inspirational enough.  

Step number one: Making the flower petals

The nice thing about the muffin liner flowers is that the petals are made from one whole piece of paper and once the flowers are completed the result is simply gorgeous -no cutting and gluing lines or breaking of the shapes and colors, just smooth natural circles. 

Flower petals from muffin / cupcakes liners

Start the process by cutting the bottoms off the muffin liners, which later on you will be able to use for the middles of the flowers. If you are making more than one flower, like I did you can mix and match the muffin liners' bottoms with the different flower petals. I used the puncher to create the middles of some of the flowers or for others simply the bottoms slightly trimmed.

Make sure that, while gluing the petals with the glue gun, you have placed paper at the middle of flowers at the rare side too, otherwise your flower will get stuck to your work table, and you don't really want that ;)!

Easy to flow steps to make flowers from muffin liners

The rest of the steps are easy to make, just follow the instructions in the images. Using the glue gun was new for me, but I have to be honest that it makes the life of the ordinary crafter much easier. It dries so fast and effortlessly that you will be wondering how you have ever managed without it. 

Before I got addicted to crafts, I had no idea that glues are so diverse and that more than one type will be needed for a single project. Which reminds me a situation at home, when a month a go my husband asked me to loan him "some glue". So I asked "What kind of glue?", he seemed to be puzzled "What do you mean?", he replayed. :)))). Then I had to explain "I have many kinds of glue, for various purposes. Define your need." He did laugh at me and shook his head. :))))) 

And READY! Lovely flowers from cupcake liners

Although the glue gun was rather appropriate for fast and easily transforming the muffin liners into beautiful flower petals, I used all purpose glue for decorating the middles of the flowers, because it is smoother look that leaves no relief. And this is all with the glue types and the flowers ..... for this step.

Step number two: Making the stems 

The making of the stems is quite easy. I used different green colored paper. Cut 0,5 cm wide lines along the length of the paper, glue the grill sticks and roll the paper over the sticks as shown on the picture under. Really easy! One advice, make sure its highness - THE GLUE :) is equally spread along the sticks and do not use cardboard paper, as is fold more difficult.

Once the stems are done and dry, use the sharp end of the grill stick and place it in the middle of the flower. (instruction 6 in the image down). If you have been using the glue gun, you'll find that rather easy to complete, as the glue from the gun forms quite good solid mass. 

Making the stems of the paper flowers

Ones the stems are at their places, the result is simply wonderful! Isn't it? 

Paper flowers with ready placed stems 

And the last step is the making of the leaves and the final touches.

Step number three: Making the leaves 

Making the leaves is the finishing touch of the process and by far the easiest. You can use different colors paper and shapes for them.  

Making the leaves of the flowers 

I particularly like the leaves made with the quilling technique. 

And you are ready!

DIY paper flowers from muffin / cupcakes liners

As I have mentioned above, the flowers were complimentary to a gift to a six years old girl and I decorated a ordinary metal tin can with a congratulatory card to complete the gift. As I have always said, you don't always need branded products to make something wonderful. 

From muffin liners to lovely paper flowers

So, get yourself armed with a little bit of patience, muffin liners and give someone a reason to smile. If you don't have muffin liners/ wrappers are home, but you are supplied with a color printer, I have up-loaded here a  design of muffin liners, that you can print and use to make either flowers or simply cupcake wrappers.

DIY Cupcakes/ Muffin wrappers printable 

Good Luck!

Digital Scrap-booking

I am in love .... :)

AFTER - digital scrapbooking 

......with this new software for digital crafting, I am trying. Can you imagine? A software for digital crafting! Really? Do you think there is anything more perfect than that? :) . Photoshop is nice too, but not so specific for crafters like me.  And please, do not think I am a professional! I am hardly a professional in any crafts I do. It's all a hobby and a matter of spending wonderful time doing something I like that will make me smile. 

I am not going to brag all around the positive and negative features of the software, although at this point I am not finding any negative, except my slow advancing :) 

For the beginning, I am just sharing with you, two images of our autumn front door decoration with before and after the make over. And please, remember I am still learning. 

BEFORE -  digital scrapbooking 

Ahhhh.... wonderful, wonderful! 

Valentine's day card in purple

Purple rain card for St. Valentines

This year I decided to join the monthly competition by Sinelli's blog "Valentine's card without red or pink" (the blog is in Finnish and for those who are wondering what is Sinelli - it is one of the biggest crafts stores in Finland or wonderland for me).

So, Valentine card without red or pink? Nice and.... yes, challenging. So I though, and thought... and after reorganizing my crafts stash several times (it is good that my husband is not aware the amount of staff for crafting I have, :))))) , I came up with purple. 

So here comes the list for the needed materials: 

yarn - for knitting the purple heart

thread - first time sewing a card

card base

paper  "Victoria and Albert V&A" by Papermania

a patch for fabric

gems

ribbons in purple and white

lace ribbon

glue 

printed text 

This rather simple card requires a bit of preparation - the heart I knitted myself, for which I need to modestly share I am quite proud of, as I am now learning to knit (just two months ago I started).

knitted purple heart 

Although, I big amateur in knitting, I manged to came up myself with the stitches I had to knit to achieve the heart pattern. Knitting with this thin yarn and needles size 2 was new for me and I had made some mistakes, but nevertheless I think it suits the vintage look of the card. However, to be honest, I realize that I miss the smooth and professional look of an experienced knitter's work, but I just have to practice more. Once the heart was ready I decorated it with the lace ribbon and two flower shaped purple gems. 

Additionally, I sew the card just to add some more decoration. I've seen other sewed cards and I find that this technique adds quite nice and adds different touch to the card. The birds decoration is a glue patch for clothing and I had a big dilemma, if I want to use it (not that I don't like it, the opposite - I like it a lot, to place it on a card, but there it is now...). 

And the rest it some ribbons and text...and this is it! 

Valentine's day card in purple

The card was not chosen as a winner, but if you look at Sinelli's blog page it was very tough competition. 

And last but not least.... I couldn't help but hear Prince's song "Purple rain", while I was writing this post, so if you have reached the end of the post, please click here and enjoy the song ( I respect Prince quite a lot as an Artists :) ).  

That's all from me today. I hope you have had a wonderful Valentine's day in a purple rain ;).

Vienna Loves us too

And we love Vienna.....

Before you get confused by the title of this post, I will explain why, you see such a title in the blog. But how to put a long story short, as I generally like long post :). But here it is. 

Last year our family visited Vienna in the beginning of May to celebrate out lovely daughter's first birthday. But why Vienna - you might ask? And the answer is "Where else but Vienna?". Vienna in the spring was just the right place to spend a romantic family weekend. And I will always remember, when we bought our daughter a piece of Schwarzwaldkirsche cake with a single candle and sang to her in Schonbrunn castle's cafe the "Happy Birthday" song. I don't know how much she understood the meaning of it until she was offered a piece  from her first birthday cake to taste, but we will always remember our excitement when people from the near by tables sang the song with my husband and I. 

Now I am sure, you understand why we love Vienna, but most certainly I can assure you that Vienna loves you too - the ordinary tourist, the every day romance seeker, the skeptic experienced  traveler, every one... Vienna does love you too, offering you to dance with her a slow flirtatious waltz where she would bend her spine of entertainment to fit your vibe. And you will not be able to get enough of it..... It is a promise. 

That is why, when I saw the ad for the competition "Valentine's Day Facebook Competition" by Vienna's Travel Board", I had to submit out picture too. 

And here it is: 

We love Vienna, and Vienna loves us too

It is a compilation of some of the most wonderful moments we spent there. And there is others, of course. I hope you will like that picture, as much as we do. 

More information about the competition and Vienna can be found here:  http://www.facebook.com/ViennaTouristBoard and here: http://www.wien.info/en/special/valentines

Click here to see and "Like" our picture. 

That will be all from me in this post, and I hope I have managed to convince you to visit Vienna. Soon. Very soon. 

DIY baby pocket bib

What else can make you smile more than a child's excitement when you make something for him/her? Well, it is a rhetorical question for me. Nothing. Of course :). 

Do it yourself pocket bib

This is the purpose of this post; to share with you the excitement of my 1,8 years old daughter when I made 

this bib for her (and one her bunny). 

I like easy and cute craft ideas that everyone can do with as little hassle as possible. 

So, if you own a sewing machine and a little bit of patience, this can be a fun Saturday afternoon project, which will bring you also lots of gratitude (or at least that was the case with me and my baby-girl). 

This summer, I saw the bib pattern from a friend, who saw it from a friend. And I was intrigued by the idea to make one for for my daughter. I like sewing in general,  but unfortunately my Singer 8082 machine was a cheap and not very good purchase choice and I had to wait till have it fixed in order to make the bib. 

But finally, here it is ready and already in use. And I dare to say, my baby never said "No" to wearing this bib, as she saw me sewing it and when it was ready I explained it was made for her. Ah, the smilies! 

Needed Materials: 

waterproof fabric (the one I used is for raincoats- water-repellent from the outside and cotton from the inside) 

color suitable threads

double fold bias tapes

sewing machine

Chose materials for the bib

I chose colorful floral fabric suitable for a girl and few different one-color double fold bias tapes. Oil-cloths are very popular fabrics for making baby bibs, but I found out that oil-cloths are hard to fold (and you do need to fold the bib to carry it with you when your child eats outside), and once folded then it wrinkles permanently. Also food that collects in the pocket of oil-cloth bib if not washed thoroughly right away it may go mouldy. The fabric I used, as it states above is for raincoats. It folds easily and food can be wiped away with a wet paper cloth if you eat outside and once home you can simply hand-wash it (it also endures machine wash). 

Measurements of the bib

The pattern of the bib can be found in JPG at the bottom of this post. I used my friend's bib as a model, but I  made a little improvement to the original. I made the pocket (the crumb guard) wider than the bib base, so it stays open all the time and easily collects food.  

Moms will definitely appreciate this, I am very very sure... :)))) 

Measurement of the pocket (crumb guard) of the bib

And with the left overs from the fabric, I made a bib for my daughter's favorite stuff toy. :))))) 

Bib for the bunny

Good luck! I am sure your child, niece, nephew, cousin, friend's child etc... will love the result :) 

P.S. Please find here the pattern of the bib, and excuse my handwriting and drawing. ;) 

The bib pattern