Coveralls

The other week we went to the first reunion for my parents descendants. They have 3 grandchildren form their 3 married children and we decided it was time. Like the reunions I had with my mom's side of the family growing up, we went camping.

A few days before we left, I was watching David crawl around on his belly and I realized that he was going to be absolutely disgusting on this trip. I own very few baby clothes since my wonderful sister has a boy about a year older than David and she graciously lets me borrow her son's cast hand-me-downs. I know she would not be so ridiculous as to be really upset if he ruined some clothes, but I still would feel bad about it. I needed a solution and it came in the form of some denim I had gotten from my grandfather's house a few days before; I made coveralls.

I used a pattern that my mother had sent me. It had patterns for a pair of overall type pants and a button up jacket included, but it did not have coveralls. It was also made for stretch knits, not denim. Still, I thought I could adapt it. I used the bottom half of the overalls, which kind of went out like balloons, and then blended the top together with the jacket. The front and back were each two pieces to allow me to make pants that would fit a baby bum and also put a zipper up the front. I used sleeves from the jacket. I made the whole thing big, because I wanted room to grow.

I originally had put snaps along the bottom like so many baby outfits. Unfortunately, I have not found snaps of a comparable quality to those on baby clothes. David always manages to burst his way out of the bottom by crawling around. I spent a while putting in the snaps, but then I took them all out. I had put David in to test the coveralls and he had all the snaps undone in less than a minute by rolling back and forth. I just sewed up the seam instead. The front zipper still allowed me to put him in and out, and, though diaper changes were not as easy, he stayed covered and his clothes clean.

I decided that David needed a collar instead of just and regular top and came up with making it a little like a NASCAR driver suit. I sewed on a stand up collar that overlapped in the front to snap. This was great because it kept everything from going down the front of his clothes.

His outfit was perhaps a bit warm for the middle of the day, but it really made life easier. The coveralls also made a very good bib. I did taking a high chair camping; I would totally recommend both. And I also brought a pack-n-play. I am apparently not much of a hard core camper when I have small children, but be it known that I still do not consider sleeping in a trailer to be camping. That is where the line must be drawn.