The Caterpillar Suit

I thought it would be cute to crochet a very hungry caterpillar suit for Lenny for the party. I did a google images search and fatefully showed him the results. He saw a caterpillar suit and that was it. He had to have a caterpillar suit.

I was inspired by this tutorial, and this forum post but ended up doing my own thing.

First I made a pattern based on one of Lenny's tshirts. I made it longer and with tabs at the top. I cut a front and a back in plain green cotton for the lining and a second front and back from 10cm (4inch) strips of fabric in similar shades of green sewn together. I sewed the side seams of each, and then placed them right sides together and sewed the neck and arms.

I stuffed the top section with poly fill and stitched (in the ditch or as close to it as I could get) to enclose. I did the same with the second section. With the following sections, I sewed the stitch in the ditch first, and then unpicked the side seam of the lining to stuff. Hemming the bottom was a challenge. In the end I sewed an extra piece of green lining to the bottom two sections (right sides together) and did a second row of stitch in the ditch to keep it in place.
To hold the top tabs together I used sticky velcro (but it came off quite quickly, I need to use sew on!)

As you can see from the pictures, he was very pleased with his suit. He has worn it a number of times since (including riding to the Chemist on his scooter yesterday) and everyone loves it.

Oh and the beanie was crocheted using this pattern. I just made up the eyes (and they're different cos I did them too far apart to remember what I did!)