Making a Playmat, a step by step guide, part eleven: Putting it together

So now you’ve got your squares, all nine of them, it’s time to put them together!

For this you’ll need:

Nine squares from the other parts
Backing fabric 24” by 24”
Square of wadding (just a bit smaller than the backing fabric)
Bias binding (approx 2.5 metres)
Small scissors
Fabric scissors
Thread
Pins

First trim any loose threads from each square.
Next you need to decide definitively what order your squares are going in, lay them out and have a play…
Next take the three squares from one of the rows, I started with the bottom row and pin the three squares together, using the sewing lines you made in part one:

Sew the three squares together and repeat with each row.

Next you need to sew the three rows to each other to make a big square. Put the bottom row and the middle row wrong sides together and pin along the lines. Do the same with the top row and the middle row and sew together on the machine. Then you should have the top part of your play mat.

So now you can layer this up with the wadding. Put the backing fabric, right side down, place the wadding on top of this, then the top part of the playmat on top of this, right side facing up.

 

Next because we’re going to do a bit of quilting, you need to pin the layers together really well. Start off from the centre, putting pins around the centre square at the corners. Then working outwards place pins across the meeting lines of each of the squares. Make sure the fabric is as taut as possible.


Next take to the machine to sew in the ditches of the stitch lines created by sewing the front part together – your basically sewing four long lines – like a noughts and crosses grid, like so:


Next you’ll want to neat up those outside edges – pin them together, again making sure the fabric is quite taut. Then sew around the edges, about ½” in from the edge. Trim the edges, as shown below:


Next it’s time to put the bias binding on. Now I didn’t put this on the proper way, mainly because I was running out of time, but also I thought it would probably be more secure, as often when you put bias binding on an item you can fail to catch the back of it with the stitching and you have to go back and do it again.

Anyway to see how to put the binding on with no viable stitching see ‘the pocket square’

But this is how I did it. Cut the end of your binding into a point and fold over. Crease your binding in half (length ways) and fold over the edge of your mat, pin into place all the way around the edge. When you get to where the ends meet, tuck one end under the folded end that you started with.

Next take to the machine and sew on, I did two stitch lines to make sure it was on really securely.

Trim any loose threads, making sure all the stitching is secure.

And there you have it, your baby’s playmat!


Back to part ten

Making a playmat, a step by step guide: Parts one and two

Play-mat Part One: Getting Started

One of my best friends is about to have a baby boy, I think I mentioned that in my last post, but it's been a while since that post... anyway I wanted to make her something for him. I was a bit worried about whatever I made being 'baby safe', so I talked to her first and as it turned out, she's making a lot of things for him too and would prefer to have home made things for him. So after some thought I settled on a playmat.... I figured I could make this pretty safe.
I thought I'd give a step by step guide on how I made this. This post will include parts one and two to start you off. I shall post part three later today.

So to start with you’re going to need a few things to make your play mat. The most basic of these is the fabrics, you’ll need nine 9 inch by 9 inch fabric squares to make up your mat, with mine I tried to choose various patterns and textures, but tried to keep it so the colours work together– although that is not essential.

Bright colours and textures stimulate babies, so it’s good to keep this in mind. Saying that this is something you can make using scraps from your fabric stash, which is what I did and unless you want to, you don’t have to go out and buy anything fancy for it, unless of course you want to!

You’ll also need a large piece of fabric for the backing material 24” by 24” and a piece of wadding just a little smaller than this.
Here’s a list of other things that I used:

Sisscors
Thread
Ruler
Pencil
8 by 8 square piece of paper (as a template for the squares)
Pins
Needle
Coloured felt
Fake fur
Other bits of fabric
Cord
Buttons and beads
Bias binding
A plastic bag
Small piece of clear pvc
The soft side of some sew-on velcro
Toy squeaker
Teething ring
Small soft toy

Some of my bits, cut out and ready to use:

Backing fabric and wadding, My backing fabric is fairly hard wearing thick cotton.

Depending on what you do with each of your squares you might use other bits and pieces.


Once you’ve chosen your nine fabrics for the squares cut a 9" by 9" square out of each. I drew around an 8 by 8 inch paper square to give me the seam line and then added half an inch seam allowance all the way around.

Once cut out, over-lock/serge or zig-zag stitch all of the edges of each square, and the backing fabric.

Then decide what order your squares are going to go in, this might change, as it did in my case, but I found it good to have a rough idea. I knew I wanted to put a furry bunny in the middle of mine as my friends are bunny people and I knew it would probably be the most striking of the squares, I also wanted a plain colour for the background, so I went with red.

I’m going to take you through each of my squares one by one in detail, but obviously you can come up with your own squares : )

Play Mat Part Two: The bunny square.

I picked the plain bright red fabric for my centre square, I thought the white bunny would stand out well on it. Next I drew myself a bunny face template.

Using your template cut the shape out of the fur fabric.

Next, pin the bunny head to the fabric square, making sure it doesn’t over lap the seam allowance. Below the fur bunny and the felt ears and nose are pinned on.

Using a fairly tight zig-zag stitch sew all the way around the outside of the bunny head.

Pull the top threads through to the wrong side of the fabric, by tugging on the under threads, and tie the threads together, this means the stitching is less likely to come undone.
So as not to keep repeating myself, although I'm sure it will happen, I did this with every item I sewed on.

Next cut out a nose shape, and the inside of the ears, in pink felt and sew them on in the same way as the head was.

For the eyes I  used black embroidery thread, using several long stitches close to each other. Embroidery thread takes less time to fill up the eye sized space, and I like the satin finish, but you could use normal thread and just go over the stitching a few more times.

 

Then trim the fur around the eyes and nose if it’s trying to cover them.

If you like, you could put a toy squeaker under the rabbit head – this should be done when you’re pinning the fur on. (The process of making this was quite organic and it only occured to me part way through to use squeakers, which you'll see later when it came to making the 'bird' square).

The finished Bunny square:
 


So that’s one square down! Next up in part three -  the ‘crinkle’ square