my mister & i were attending a shindig for a young miss who had, amongst other things, asked for tools for her birthday. i culled through my fabric stash and picked up an additional bit and pleaded with my mister to make her birthday wish come true. he is much better at three dimensional sculpture than i am. he hammered out, if you will, a most marvelous trio of tools per my design (wink wink).
for my part, i whipped up a tool belt so that the young miss may have her tools at the ready for you never know when a princess (or a pirate) needs to fix something (like a bouncy house). it was easy-peasy, check it out.
to make a tool belt you will need:*placemat
*needle & thread (or sewing machine)
*pins
*ribbon
*velcro
*scissors
*scrap fabric
scrumdilly-do it:
the first thing i did was sew a fun little patch of fabric onto the top end of the place mat. or rather, the top end of the back side. place placemat in front of you horizontally, wrong side up. pin scrap of fabric to top right corner and stitch on using a zigzag stitch. this is for decoration only so you can add as many patches of color as you like or you can leave it alone and add none.
next up i used a small straight stitch on the machine to affix a length of velcro from one end to the other. the velcro strip overlaps the fabric patch. the other half of the velcro is attached to the tools. if you are choosing to add velcro, make sure you have the right tack attached to the tools otherwise they won't stick and what fun would that be?
flip placemat over with velcro and patch closest to you. fold up to about two inches from the top and pin in place. determine the center of your place mat and stitch from bottom of fold to a little past the edge.
with placemat now tacked into a fold, line up edges on the right side using the corner of the mat. now, bring corner towards the center of the mat so that the top corner now lines up with the top of the mat. pin into place and repeat for other side. this is so the pockets have room for extra toys and/or the tools themselves.
gather your ribbon and cut into two lengths at least ten inches long, there will be an excess of ribbon but you will want to tie it around your kidlet's waist securely. most placemats run about 19" across. you can trim after your final fitting. Pin ribbon to placemat under the diagonal folds you just pinned. stitch along the diagonal edge of the placemat keeping sure to catch the ribbon end so that is is anchored to the new belt.
remove pins, trim ribbon edges, affix tools, tie on and enjoy! *if you do not have a set of plush tools or do not feel up to making them, you can glue velcro onto light plastic toys and they too will stick to the belt.
okay, those tools are fantastic. and the tool belt so fun.
ReplyDeleteLovin' that the little girl asked for tools, breaking stereo types is hip!
I love this idea!
ReplyDeleteyou could totally sell this type of toy ....just think of the varieties, fabric rolling pin, spoon and knife that affix to an apron as well as some fabric flowers and bugs and animals for the botanist/vet play set! perhaps some anatomy in soft form for learning bones or food items to make a pizza......love your creativity!