Making a Playmat, a step by step guide, part four: The Bee Square

For this square I used a pale yellow lining fabric, this brings a different texture to the mat, as it’s smooth. Adding to that, the strips of the soft loop side velcro give it another dimention.

For this square you’ll need:

One of the fabric squares prepared in part one (a lighter one is better to show up the black stitching.)

Two short strips of the loop/soft side of sew-on velcro (about 2” long)

Black thread

Square of felt in similar colour to the fabric (optional depending on the thickness of the top fabric, mine was thin and I didn’t want it to pull as I sewed it)


I started by placing some yellow felt under my fabric (to stop the machine from pulling the thin fabric), then positioning my two strips of velcro about ¾ of an inch apart in the centre of the square and pinning them, catching the felt in the pins as well.

I put them at a slight angle, so eventually it would look like he bee was flying upwards. You can see from the photo that I curved the corners of the velcro to fit the shape of the bee.

Next sew on the velcro using black thread and pull the threads through to the back after, knotting them together.

Next with straight stitch sew an egg/oval shape around the two velcro stripes, making sure the stitch line touches the tops and bottom edges of the velcro. The smaller end of the egg shape should be where you intend the face to be. Then stitch on the smile at the smaller end, and two petal shapes for the wings on the top – see picture below

Once again I used back embroidery thread to create the bee’s eye.

Next you can add a fly line, you’ll need to keep your machine going quite slow to keep any loop-the-loops tight.

Tie off all the threads at the back.

And there you have it, your third square – a cute bee with a combination of textures to stimulate your baby's senses!

In part five I’ll take you through the ‘pocket’ square.
Back to parts one & two can be found here.
Back to part three.
On to part five

Making a playmat, a step by step guide, part three: The Crinkle Square

The crinkle square.

On most playmats, there’s that square that makes a rustling noise when you touch it.

For this square, you’ll need:

One of your 9” by 9” fabric squares, cut out in part one
An 8” by 8” square of felt
One or two plastic bags, folded up
Thread

Start by taking your wadge of plastic bags, holding the layers together, cut out a rough square, approximately 7.5” squared. It doesn’t need to be that accurate, so long as it’s smaller than your square of felt. Lie the layred plastic squares in the centre of your fabric square.

Place your piece of felt on top of the plastic, sandwiching it between the felt and the fabric and pin into place.

Using a straight stitch, sew the felt to the fabric. I avoided catching the plastic with my machine, as I feared it might blunt it.

Pull the threads through to the back and fasten securely.

I did wonder after if I should have screwed the plastic bags up rather than folded them, to get more noise out of them, but I figured that might not be as comfortable for the baby to lie on, so I stuck with how I did it.

When the top part of the mat was done, I thought this square looked a little plain compared to the rest, so I decided to add a little felt umbrella:

First I cut out two simple shapes out of felt.

Then I used zig-zag stitch to sew on the handle. I placed the brolly part over the sewn-on handle and zig-zagged around that. I used straight stitch to mark out the umbrella sections.

And there you have it, the crinkle square! In part four I’ll take you through how I did the Bumble Bee square.

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

Long time, no post

I suddenly realised yesterday that it's been ages since I posted on either of my blogs, so I decided to add it to today's 'to do'list and resolve that.

It was a bit hectic here for a while as we thought we were moving, then we weren't and are now starting the process all over again, anyway I've managed to fit in some whimsical wardrobe activity despite all the packing and unpacking!


So a litle while ago I was making those vintage inspired aprons, well I decided to make some small ones for little people. That way mother and daughter could have matching ones, which I thought was acute idea.




Last year I was invited to have a stall at a charity coffee morning, this year I went again, the event had got bigger, with lots more stalls, and I'd learnt a few tricks from last year, the main one being displaying stuff, last year I had clothing lying on the table, it's hard to see that way, this year I had a washing line with all my aprons and mini aprons lined up. Unfortunately I took the photo after I'd sold a couple, so you don't get the full glory : )

It was a gorgeous day for it, if not a little windy and the morning raised over £700 for the children's hospice.







One more thing. One of my bestest friends is expecting a baby boy and I'm going to be giving making some baby stuff a go, I've already done some cloth nappies, as that's what she wants to use. But I figured it might be fun to put together some tutorials for making baby toys, while I'm doing it, so hopfully I'll be posting some stuff on that soon...

More table accessories!

Following on from the last post, I've made some more table mats to go with some of the other vintage aprons... so you could have a set to go with any of them : )
Again the mats are quilted and double sided, with each side contrasting and matching one of the vintage aprons.

New Vintage Style Apron, this time with table accessories!

So I have completed another vintage inspired apron, this time going back to the 1950s theme. And, also, this time I decided to do some matching bits for the table, this way you can have a themed dinner party! Tablewares to match your apron!

The apron is in black and white gingham, with the waistband and pockets in one of my favourite fabrics, strawberries and polka dots! On the strap a red heart shaped button mounted on a black button decorates where the strap meets the apron. The pockets have a lovely curve to them and have a black binding on the top edge.

The mats are reversable, gingham one side, strawberries the other and bound in black binding. They're quilted, so are lovely and soft, but will also protect the table from heat, and also washable.

I also added in some strawberry napkin rings, but I think I will make these reversable too, so you can mix and match with the mats.

Well I'm feeling ready to throw a dinner party now! You can check out the whole vintage inspired range on facebook, here.

Another Vintage Inspired Apron creation

So here's my third apron in my new range of vintage aprons... it's been a little while, as I've been away, absorbed by a very good friend's wedding and with house hunting.

This time I stuck with the 1940s look, as I really liked the last one : ) This one is in yellow with white polka dots and blue gingham, with a gorgeous binding on the pocket in white with lemons printed on it. Again there is a little rossette where the strap meets the bib part of the apron.

I know I feel fancy when I wear one of these in the kitchen - who says you can't look glamourous whilst cooking : )

Keep your eyes pealed for more vintage inspired products coming soon : )