Voila: Puddle Suit

Have you heard of a puddle suit before?

I went into Spotlight yesterday, and asked for waterproof fabric (thinking there would be no way), and as I had Baby Darling on my back, I indicated to make a onesie type thing for playtime outside, and the lovely woman at Spotty quipped "You mean a puddle suit?!" and that's exactly what this is!

Over the past few weeks as Baby Darling wants to explore his surrounds, it's also been quite wet and dreary (hey, it's winter!) outside... but he gets bored inside. How many times can a kid look in the tupperware cupboard? (A LOT if you're my boy)

So a few of us in our Mother's Group started talking about a all in one zip up suit... so they can wear their normal clothes and not get wet through the knees and the bottom! So now I know it's a puddle suit! (I bet my mum - a kindergarten/early childhood educator for many years - knew this and I should have asked her what it was called... but that'll have to wait for the weekend when I see her!)

So I looked into my pattern stash (that I'd pulled out in search of The Sew Weekly Reunion creation... still haven't chosen my pattern!) and this little McCalls costume popped out, because check out that astronaut suit:

Looks like a Puddle Suit in disguise to me!

And you know what? The fabric the woman in Spotlight suggested to me was Ripstop Nylon ($6.95 a metre FYI) and it's the SAME stuff I used to make my Neon Bike Dress in late 2011! AMAZING, and so weird that I can just forget fabric that easily! I like the sewing part and the wearing part, not so good with terminology or actual fabric name part. I often just call everything poplin as I forget what other cotton stuff is called. (Is poplin a cotton? ARGH, now I'm doubting the easy stuff!)

So it wasn't hard to make the Puddle Suit, about half an hour of sewing after another half an hour of cutting... I changed the raglan sleeve of the astronaut style (just a short cut, as that's extra sewing) and possibly the neckline is a little loopy, but not really important as it's a practical suit not a fashionable one (but there is a vintage zipper in the mix, for you trainspotters!).

I measured (what I thought) correctly the length for his legs/arms, but when he moves around in the suit, they ride up a little (with the elastic ends) so next time (!) I'll make it a bit longer all round. Fuck he looks cute in it though! We go to a gardening playgroup on Tuesdays, so it got a little work out there... and this afternoon we did a bit of weeding together as well as the sun stayed out for a bit longer.

SO CUTE!