The Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

 

Baby #3 is going to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme. I first saw this nursey theme in Pottery Barn and fell in love! But $200 for a quilt?! Yikes! Plus, you need sheets, bumper, decor, etc. Ugh.  The boys have twin quilt madras quilt from Pottery Barn and I love them! But they are going to use them for a long time, not just as a toddler. So it was worth spending more. Plus, my mom bought them for birthday presents :)

 

Andover Fabrics sells Eric Carle fabric. But I wasn't able to find it in local stores or from the manufacturer. Back to etsy! I had to price shop (searched eBay too). I wasn't able to find all the fabrics that I wanted from the same seller, so I had to buy them seperately. But depending on what kinds of fabrics you want, you can save on shipping by buying from the same seller.

 

The border and backing I got from a local fabric store. They had a very cute green Eric Carle fabric I thought about getting for the backing, but thought I had spent enough! So I got a cute earthy green that I thought would do well as the backing.

 

I did diagonal stitching for the quilting, but didn't like how much it was bunching. And I didn't want to regret the way it looked. Had to use the seam ripper (which took a couple hours!) and removed the quilt from the machine after each line, smoothed everything out, repinned and sewed another line. It took longer, but was much flatter.

 

I also wanted to do a blind hand stitch on the binding. This also took a couple of hours, but it looks so much better than top stitching the binding. And I didn't have a blind stich options with my machine. I always forget how to do the machine binding and mitering, but finally found this video on youtube, found here. Machine stitch the binding to the quilt, then flip and press and hand stitch the other side. She talks about how to machine stitch the other side as well. I like to have a continuous border on the binding, and always forget how to do the corners. This video is great!

 

I love this quilt and have a crib bumper in the works as well! I spent about $50 on the fabric, had batting on hand and about 10 hours of labor (some of that was fixing mistakes!). I even tried looking on etsy to see if I could find quilts for under $200. Not easy, but there were some available. I just had a certain quilt in mind, and thought I could do it for cheaper!

Adjustable Toddler Belt

Have you ever had a pair of infant or toddler pants that were just a little too loose? My first son is thin. When he was a toddler, his waist size in pants was smaller than his pant length. So I put a belt on him for a while. What a pain to take off every time he needed a diaper change. Then I discovered the adjustable waist pant. Hallelujah! But these can be hard to find in infant sizes (24 months and smaller). So he wore athletic pants for a long time! Good ole elastic pants!

My second son is.... not so thin. :) He is built like a tree trunk, round and solid! With the added bulk of a cloth diaper, now I run into the opposite problem. He needs larger pants in the waist, but they are still a little too loose.

My sister-in-law had the same problem with pants staying on her son too. She introduced me to the Dapper Snapper. It's an adjustable toddler belt that snaps in the back, so you never have to worry about taking it off during diaper changes. I thought it was a great invention! Created by a mom, of course! And they come in all different colors to either match an outfit or add flare.

I really didn't want to spend $10 per belt. So I made my own version of one. It's a simple concept. But I've never attached snaps before, and I went through almost a whole package before I figured out how to use the tools and attach them correctly. Typically I could make about 4 belts with one package of snaps (at $2.59 per package, plus my 40% off coupon because I'm cheap). I already had the black elastic on hand. But I did check the elastic out to see if I could get a navy for jeans and tan for khakis. Unfortunately I only found black and white elastic in my local craft stores. More colors are probably available online.

I didn't measure anything, which is strange for me... the perfectionist! I just placed the first outtie snap and then fitted them on the jeans to the tension I liked, and placed the rest of the snaps. I used a youtube video as a reference on how to attach snaps, and of course now I can't find it! The problem I had was putting the innie snaps on backwards, or hammering until the metal was crooked. I seriously had no idea how to attach these things! The innie piece with the side that feels raised up is the side that gets hammered against the prongs.