Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This set of bibs is for my friend Rabecca's adorable new baby, Samuel.

Rabecca is a librarian, and I knew she loved Eric Carle's classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar. My initial plan was to applique a onesie similar to this one I've seen around. But when I stopped to buy a pack of onesies, I couldn't find any plain ones. I'd already exhausted my 2-year-old's patience with errands that day, so I decided to just make do with whatever I had at home. As it turned out, I ended up completing this project 100% from the stash. In fact, some of those scraps have been in my pile for over a decade! There's something really satisfying in that.

Throughout the process of making these bibs, I fell in and out of love with them several times. There are many flaws. I spent way too much time fighting with the snaps. I should have done ties. And I'm not sure how I feel about the the zig zag borders. But I love how the appliques themselves turned out. I do wish I'd been able to do a full set of seven bibs for each of the hungry caterpillar's hungry days. But abundant as my stash is, I didn't have any purple fabric for plums. And I'll admit it was laziness that kept me from tackling the day when the caterpillar eats chocolate cake, a cupcake, sausage, a pickle, cheese, salami, and a whole watermelon. (Among other things.) Maybe next time.

I used a bib template I found here, and based the apples, pears and leaves on some clip art from here.


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Edited to correct my spelling of "caterpillar" every single time I typed it. And to join Kimba's DIY party. Go see some seriously cool stuff
right here. Go. Go!

7 comments:

Ree said...

Dang you are getting craftier by the hour, I think! Those are adorable.

Lady said...

I LOVE these. I have made similar bibs (no applique) out of disney fabric. They were reverseable but I didn't do snaps. I think that would scare me. I used velcro squares that I sewed on.

I love the applique. It actually looks quite perfect to me. I really haven't done much in that realm but I would love to learn. Perhaps a few bibs would be the way to go. Thanks for the ideas.

Amber said...

i so love these bibs. u are so creative in your projects.

Amy {The Red Chair Blog} said...

Oh, these are adorable! I read that book to my daughter almost daily :)

Kimba said...

Those are adorable! Thanks for sharing!

Kimba

Crystal said...

Great idea!

I have a poll up on my blog about my BIGGEST decor dilemma. Come on over and vote, I need all the help I can get!

http://imnomartha.blogspot.com/2009/08/first-poll-ever-to-paint-or-not-to.html

Mombrud said...

These are really cute! If you don't like the zigzag edges, paint around them with fabric paint. They will look much cleaner!