Wednesday 7 September 2011

Making a Playmat, a step by step guide, part ten: The Teething Ring Square

I thought I would be a good idea to put a teething ring on the play-mat, something the baby can get his mouth around and it can be wiped clean afterwards. I found this ring at a car boot sale, no marks on it at all, and I disinfected it when I got home. I have no problem with using second hand baby stuff, the boot sales are always full of it and most of it looks hardly used. I digress. I chose a satin fabric for this square to add another texture to the mat, and the ribbon is left over from making my niece a bag, I love the cute little paw prints on it!
Here’s how to make the teething ring square:

For this square you will need:
The last of your fabric squares prepared in part one.
A babies teething ring
A piece of ribbon
A small piece of felt, mine was approx 1.5" by 3" (optional depending on how flimsy your fabric is)

step1

First seal the ends of your ribbon so that they don’t fray – if the ribbon is synthetic then this is easy, you can melt the ends. I simply cut the ends of mine diagonally and held the end for a few seconds on the hot plate of the aga. You can use a candle flame too, but don’t hold the ribbon too much into the flame, you don’t want to set it on fire! If the ribbon is made of natural materials then you can fold the end over twice (to seal the edge) and stitch it down.
Next work out the positioning of your ribbon around the ring. I did mine so that the ribbon was diagonal across the square and so that the teething ring would dangle into the centre of it. Pin into place:

positioning pinned on front view

I put a small piece of felt on the wrong side of the square to re inforce the ribbon and the fabric. This was because the ring is heavy and also the fabric of my square is satin, so more flimsy than the stronger cottons, I didn’t want the ring to tug at it too much.

back view of pinning with felt

Next sew on the ribbon, using the machine in a couple of places (see picture below). I left the ends of my ribbon loose s that it’s another texture for the baby to play with. Babies always love the labels on things and the ribbon is a similar feeling to that.

teething ring square

And there you are your final square, next time I’ll be going through how to put all nine squares together.

Back to part nine.
On to part eleven 

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