Little nursery sewing projects

Only three weeks 'til my due date. Panic has been slowly and steadily replaced with excitement and readiness to get this show on the road. Just one week ago, I was not feeling ready. But some magical neurons fired in my brain, and now I just seem to be propelling forward.

This morning my husband walked in on me standing in the baby's room, ripping the plastic bag off the crib mattress and wrestling a sheet onto it. "Nesting is so funny," he said, and I couldn't agree more. It's the weirdest sensation, like you will be unable to survive unless you get the damned fitted sheet on RIGHT THAT SECOND. I stepped back and looked at my handiwork. I sighed. I felt much better.

I've been working on the baby's room in little spurts for the past few months now, and just put the finishing touches on a couple of last-minute sewing projects. First up, a simple scalloped garland for the bottom of the crib. I couldn't find a crib skirt that I liked, and after just having finished sewing some pretty intense curtains, I didn't want to attempt to make one myself. But garlands and buntings? I could totally do that. I especially like this solution because it won't get in the way/require extra sewing once we need drop the level of the crib. Here's what I came up with:

And here's how to make it!

1. First, I measured around three edges of the crib to calculate the total length of the garland. Then I purchased some extra-wide bias tape, that just happened to come in the exact length needed (3 yards).

2. Next I selected three different fabrics from my stash, and used a kitchen bowl to trace and then cut out 12 circles (4 of each fabric type) of the same size. Mine ended up being about 7 inches in diameter.

3. Each circle was then folded in half, keeping the "right" sides of the fabric facing inward. I pinned the edges to keep everything tidy and lined up. Then I cut across the straight folded seam with pinking shears, leaving me with two half-circles, still pinned together with the printed/patterned sides of the fabric facing in.

4. Next, I ran the half circles through the sewing machine with a simple straight stitch along the curve. This binds the curved edges together so you have a cute little pocket. I left the straight tops open, and then turned the finished pieces right-side out.


5. Almost done. Next step was to iron all the half-circle pockets nice and flat.

6. Finally, I snugged each half-circle up inside the fold of the bias tape, pinned each in place, and then ran a zig-zag stitch the whole length of the tape to secure all 12 of my little scallops. I left a few extra inches of bias tape at each end in order to make it a little easier to tie the garland to the crib rails.

And that's it. I attached it to the crib with bits of ribbon at the corners, and tied off the ends with the excess bias tape that I'd purposely left free.

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For my other spontaneous project, I was seeking out something that was soft and light enough to hang on the wall near the crib. The blank walls were starting to scream at me. So I decided on making some super-simple embroidered wall-hangings.

I have a huge stash of plain unbleached muslin in my fabric bin (this is seriously the best stuff to just have hanging around in large quantities), so that served perfectly for the background. I stretched it over the embroidery hoops tight as a drum, and then trimmed off the excess, leaving about an inch around the edges.

Next, I cut some fluffy cloud shapes out of plain white felt. I attached them to the muslin by stitching around the edges of each cloud with silvery-gray embroidery floss.

To finish off the muslin edges, I simply folded them over and secured them to the inner edge of the hoop with hot glue. Hang them on the wall, and that's pretty much it!

So that's a little sneak preview of what's going on in the "spare room" turned office turned nursery, soon to be occupied by a whole brand-new, soft, squirming human being.

Yikes.