The Very Hungry Caterpillar Costume

I wanted to share the book character costume I made for one of my littles. Scroll down to find out how!

At her preschool, they have a big fundraising event all based around children and the arts. They choose three painters, learn about them over a couple of months, then recreate their paintings. They sell them to parents and family as a way of raising money for the school. Sounds like a win-win for me!

In this program, the children have to choose a book to bring in, dress like that character, and set up a table about the book. We chose the Very Hungary Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. And wouldn't you know there's a whole fabric line for this???

Supplies needed:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric:

• 1/4 yard white print with dots/food

• 1/4 yard small multi-colored dots

• 1/2 yard of green (more if directional)

2. HeatnBond UltraHold Iron-On Adhesive

3. Scissors - These are my favorite!! More on my favorite sewing tools in a future blog.

4. An iron

5. Sewing machine

6. Blank white shirt

7. 1" wide elastic and safety pin

Instructions:

**Keep in mind that I created a skirt for a petite 4-year-old. If your child is older/bigger, you will need more fabric.

First, I created a simple skirt. There are many YouTube videos about this, and I may go into depth about this in the future, but here is a simple pattern to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SYsZ194zk8 from the Crafty Gemini! She makes things quick and easy. This skirt took 20 minutes, tops!

After the skirt is assembled, it's time to fussy cut some butterflies, caterpillars, food, and dots!

With the HeatNBond, cut out shapes that are slightly bigger than the shapes on the fabric you'd like to cut out.

Here, you can see my rectangle cut-out is slightly bigger than the piece of pie and muffin in the top right.

Fuse the HeatnBond onto the BACK of the fabric, per the package instructions. Flip the fabric over to the right side and carefully cut out your pieces. For the butterflies, I got as close as possible around the body and left the space in between the antennas. That area was too small to cut into.

You should have something like this! Arrange the dots on the white shirt and the other pieces on the skirt. Fuse them according to the HeatnBond package instructions.

Lastly, use your dot fabric to create a little headband and you have a simple, ADORABLE book character costume!