Easy toy quilt tutorial

Okay, calling this thing a quilt is a stretch. Or possibly an insult to quilters everywhere. But! It does make a fantastic baby toy. I whipped this up in a hurry one day when I was in need of quiet baby toys. Olive's got a thing for scrunching up textiles. (hooray!) My goal with this was to make something with a variety of textures for her to enjoy.

Here's what you need:

• 3 - 4.5" x 12" (11.4 cm x 30.4 cm) pieces of cotton


• 1 - 12" x 12" (30.4 cm x 30.4 cm) piece of fabric for the back (I used a cheap, silky one...the better for scrunching.)


• 4 - 4" x 12" (10 cm x 30.4 cm) pieces of fleece (Please ignore the obviously 14" long pieces in the photo. I was going to try something else, which wound up not working. IGNORE!)

Step 1- Sew together the cotton
Placing the right sides together, sew the long sides of two pieces together.

Connect the third piece in the same way. You'll wind up with something like this:

Press the seams open in the back:


Step 2 - Assembly
Pin the back fabric to the front, wrong sides together. Lay one of the fleece pieces underneath at the top, and fold about half of it over like so:


Pin into place, and sew the bottom edge. Repeat this process with the opposite edge:

Place another piece of fleece on one of the open sides, making sure to overlap the already sewn on fleece. Pin, and sew as you did the last two. Add the final fleece piece in the same way. (Yes, I could have been typing "binding" all this time, but you have to admit "fleece piece" is much more enjoyable to say. Try it.)
Using a 1/2" seam allowance, sew around the outside edge of the quilt:

Trim the threads, and baby, you are done!

Notes:

• This is totally machine washable. And dryable. Unless you use some fancypants fabric that is not, alas, machine washable.


• I wish I had spent a little more time on this project, honestly. The tiny format would be perfect for trying out new patterns.

Baby Crafting - Olive's First Chickenpants

I had planned on having these done before she was even born. Sheeesh. Well, here they are, and she's 5 months old.

Black and white things are supposed to be good for their little baby eyes. Hence the all black and whiteness. I really like how the white one's face turned out. All spooky and gothy.

I scaled the pattern down a bit to be easier for tiny hands to clutch. It appears to have worked. The traditional bead eyes and button belt had to go, so I replaced them with felt.
Here's hoping she likes them!

The most effective baby toy ever - Tutorial!

Behold, the best baby toy ever. At least, that's what Olive thinks. This little toy has bought me all sorts of quiet time. Dude, she is playing with it right now as I write this post. As someone who has long considered herself a toymaker, I have mixed feelings about this toy. On the one hand, it works! The baby likes it! Isn't that what it's all about? On the other hand, boy, is it ugly.
In any case, I'll let you decide. Here's a tutorial. Make it for the busy little ones in your life.

What's really cool about this toy is that you can just use whatever you have on hand. Here's what I used, though:

6" square of silky fabric
6" square of fleece
Felt in 3 colors
Various ribbons in various lengths
Polyfill
Thread
Needle & thread
Sewing machine (Optional, but helpful)
Scissors

First, cut two circles roughly 6" across. Seriously, roughly is fine. This thing is going to get spit all over it.

Then cut your ribbon into various lengths. I used 9 pieces of ribbon ranging from 13" to 4". Cut your felt into three 2.5" x 2.5" squares.

Stack the pieces of felt on the right side of the fleece. I staggered them a bit, like so:

Now sew them in place.

Here's where it starts looking crazy. Arrange your ribbons on top of the fleece, wrong side up. Pin the ends in place. You may want to turn some of the longer ribbons into loops. Just pin both ends to the edge in that case.

See the big fat purple ribbon on top? LOOP!

Now, carefully carefully carefully sew the ribbons in place. Just sew in a circle, making sure to catch at least one end of each ribbon.


Place the silky circle right side down on top of the fleece piece. Pin in place, being careful that all ribbons are tucked safely in the center. Sew in a circle, leaving about a 1" opening.

Now, it should look like this:

A total mess. Anyway, turn that bad boy inside out, stuff it with polyfill, and then sew the gap closed thusly:

Needle, thread, pinching the raw ends in. Boom.

There! You're done! I hope this toy brings you and your favorite little one hours of enjoyment.

Notes!
This is machine washable. Toss it in the machine cold, then hang it to dry from one of those loops you put in. Easy peasy.

J is for Joss Whedon

Have you seen most ABC books? Yawn. I wanted to create a book for Olive that would be tactile and interactive. Also, awesome. I wanted to show her things that mean something to her father and I. Important things, like trademarked characters and ice cream.
Thus I raided my stash of felt and set to work with scissors and a hot glue gun. And a gob of fake hair. (See page H.)

I cut every piece by hand, thus the general wonkyness. I created a few pattern pieces, but mostly it was just easier to cut them free hand.

Here are a few of my favorite pages:

S is for Sun and Stars, T is for Totoro. The T page is actually the first one I made.

I'm happy with how Zelda here turned out:

She's one of the few princesses who don't make me want to throw up. Even if she is mostly just baggage to be saved for most of the video games. She really comes into her own around the Majora's Mask era, however. But I digress.

I incorporated a few photos, too:

O is for Olive, of course. The photos turned out being some of the simplest pages to make. Photo, thin sheet of plastic, felt, glue, go.

J wound up being for Jetpack, but I like to imagine that it's Joss Whedon wearing a jetpack. (A million thanks to the lovely people on Twitter for helping me out with J. Other honorable mentions: Jabberwocky, Joule, Jellybelly, Jawa, Jabba the Hutt, and Jock Strap.)

You can check out the whole book here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallchick/sets/72157626558378113/