the spit-up catcher tutorial

Great title, right?  I'm sorry, my creative brain is tapped out.  I churned out as many projects as my gassy newborn would let me (too much information?) between his screaming fits and now it's 10:30 at night and I'm wiped.  Because I have a newborn.  Did I mention that?  Newborns mean no sleep, as you know if you've had one.  Or known anyone who had one.  I think that covers everyone on the planet, yes?

Moving along.  If someone has a better name suggestion, I'm all ears!

The idea for this came from the other spit-up catcher I did - the square one - and is just another scrapbuster.  It's not a necessary baby "gadget" by any means, but we definitely use it with my big spitter-upper and it has saved the rug, couch and bassinet too many times to count.  

I caught a poop face!  Forgive the mom humor that abounds in this post.  I'm a sleep-deprived mess.

Could I use a burp rag and serve the same purpose?  Sure.  But one, it's not as cute (I mean c'mon, this one is adorable, right?).  

Two: I would be wasting a perfectly good burp cloth.  

Three: Sometimes I don't have enough fabric for a full burp cloth.  Like was the case here.  So I improvised and I love it.  

This also works as a poopy catcher.  I titled the album that all these pictures went in "Pee Pee Catcher," another name that describes another possibility.  See, this thing is as awesome as my naming skills.  

Stick it under the adorable baby buns before you change a diaper and again, save your couch/bed/crib/friend's carpet from the inevitable...yuckiness.

Okay, I'll spare you all the other bad jokes rattling around in my brain and we'll move along to the tutorial now.

You're like, thank God, right?

So sorry about that gross baking stone.  You'll see why I'm using it in a second, but still, I've tried to spare you and make it black and white for your viewing pleasure.  It really isn't dirty.  It just looks dirty.

The Playas:

Scrap cotton fabric

Scrap absorbent fabric (I'm using organic bamboo fleece - CRAZY soft)

Something in your house that's a big circle you can use to trace your template

Measuring tape

Rotary cutter (or fabric scissors)

Mat

Washable Marker

Pins

Now, put right sides of your two fabrics together.

Now trace your big circle onto one side of the fabric.

Voila.

Pin together.  When I'm working with really stretchy fabric like this bamboo fleece, I like to pin close together to prevent the fabric from shifting.  I always pin first, then cut with your rotary cutter or fabric scissors.

Voila again.

Start sewing.  You can choose your seam allowance.  Unless I'm sewing clothes or something that requires a specific seam allowance, I just butt up my fabric to the side of my foot.  It just makes life easy for me.

Make sure to backstitch at the beginning.

And then leave an opening big enough to turn this fabric right side out.  Backstitch:

Trim your edges if necessary:

Turn it right side out.  It might look a little funky, this like:

I use a knife sharpener to push out all the corners/edges to make it a circle.  I stick it in the opening that we have yet to sew up.  Is it weird that I use a knife sharpener?  Do you use a "proper" tool or something random like this?

Now iron it down.

Just make sure you have enough fabric in your opening that when you topstitch, you'll completely close this opening up:

Here's what it should look like now:

Head back to your machine to topstitch this bad boy up.  Again, seam allowance is up to you.

And you're done!  Bam.  How easy was that?!

Pretty cute, right?

Well, poop face or not, he sure makes it cute at least.