Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Tool Belts for the Boys

We've slowly been working on some home renovations and every time hubby reaches for his tools both boys go a little crazy and run and get their play tools in an effort to help out.

Zac loves the idea of a tool belt and can often be found shoving tools into the elastic band of his pants and/or underware. I decided that because of this, he needed his own tool belt. Shockingly enough, those suckers are hard to come by in a size small enough for his little waist! So I made him one.

In the future, I plan on using fabric instead of felt, just to make it a bit sturdier, so I'll give instructions for using both felt and fabric, because I'm nice like that!


To start you'll need:
Scissors (I also used my rotary tool)
felt or fabric
a ruler
velcro
sewing machine or hand sewing supplies

Cut a strip 24" long x 3" wide for the waist band, and cut 3 rectangle pieces 10" long x 5" wide, or you can measure the size of the tools and change the measurement according to what will best fit.
Fold the waist band in half, long sides together, and stitch from one end to the other, closing off one end. Fold your rectangles in half, short sides together, and stitch up the sides. Turn everything right side out and close off the end of the waist band that you had left open.
Add velcro to the ends of the waist band (will need to be place on opposite sides in order to match up without needing to twist the band.). If you use felt to make the tool belt, you will want to pull all your hair out trying to turn the waist band, I only turned 1 and left the other with the stitching showing... You may also want to throw in a top stitch to each pocket to give it a bit more finish.

Take your pockets and cut 2 slits in the back (works best if it's close to the middle, not quite as high as I have in the picture), roughly 2" long, or however long you need to in order to thread the waist band through without bunching. Thread the waist band through, and do the same thing with the remaining 2 pockets. If using fabric, make 2 button holes in the back of each pocket using the same measurements.

To make it a bit cuter, I cut 3 tool shapes out of sticky back felt and stuck one on each pocket.

Voila! I think it's so cute!
I couldn't get a nice picture of Zac, no matter how hard I tried!
Eli was just up from his nap and couldn't even allow himself time to come to completely before he was off and stuffing things into each pocket!

They both LOVE them!!!

Photobucket