Makes by Maartje: A Playpen Mat

Hello!

So lovely of you to come and visit my blog (again)! Today is all about the playpen mat I made for our son to be! As I am not experienced at all in writing tutorials, I hope you can understand my describing the different steps I took to make this Make! Hope you enjoy it and would love to hear from you.

So with our second child on the way and the creative spark that is slowly but surely bursting into a flame, I decided I wanted to make our son a playpen mat. My mother-in-law made one for our daughter two years ago, but this time I wanted to give it a go myself.

Our playpen measures 80 x 100 cm. With our daughter having hit her head a few times when she was tiny, I wanted to make one approximately 100 x 120 cm.

So I came up with the idea of using three different kinds of fabric. The color scheme for the nursery is navy, gray and white. Even though the playpen is in our living room, I decided to go with the same colors for the mat.

I bought four kinds of cotton fabric in various blues and prints. A navy one with small white dots, navy with small white stars, a patchwork fabric with stars and stripes, also in navy and white and last but not least, a Delft Blue like fabric with old fashioned mills, wooden shoes and tulips on them. But when laying out the design, I decided to not use the Delft Blue one as it did not complement the color pallet or style. That one will be used for another one of my Makes ~smile~

I cut two types of fabric into four rectangles and sewed them together. Nothing fancy, just straight forward sewing. I did hem the fabric as in my experience, babies do drool and puke on these mats from time to time. By hemming the fabric, it will surely survive our laundry machine ~smile~. After sewing, I ironed out the edges, giving it a straight and nice look. It also allowed me to iron out some creases in the fabric.

So the four blocks are the base of the mat. With the navy and white stars fabric, I made a border. Since my mat was a bit bigger than the base of the playpen, I wanted to use that same fabric as backing of the mat.

Before cutting and measuring the backing, I cut the edges. My mother-in-law helped me so I cut all of the fabric as economically as possible ~smile~.

For padding the playpen mat, I used a fairly thick duvet from my favorite Swedish shop, Ikea! I cut it into the right size, after I sewed the edges to the four rectangles.

Then I put the large panel of fabric on the floor, with the rest of the white star fabric underneath. Then I cut out the backing, remembering from one of the tutorials I read, to add 2 centimeters on each side, allowing the lining to have enough room as it was so thick.

With the right sides of the fabric on top of each other, I pinned them together without the lining in between. That way sewing them on my machine would be much easier. I also measured the playpen, to check where I needed to attach the ribbons I wanted to use, to secure the mat to the bars of the playpen. Then I pinned on the ribbons and started sewing it all together. I left an opening as if I was making a proper duvet cover, to be able to put the lining inside. Then finally I cut the lining to size and sewed the opening shut.

Only thing I have to do now, is to sew the rectangles, the lining and the back of the mat together, to prevent the lining from shifting. But that will be done over the weekend, and I will have to do that manually, as the total package will not fit my machine without wrinkling all of it. And I would hate for that to happen of course!

Pictures of the final result will be posted later on. 
My next Make will be a flag garland from the leftover fabrics. I will post that in a couple of days. So until then, thanx for joining me today!

Xoxo,

Maartje