More on Play Mats

I found the fabric for the play mats at Joann's Fabric store. I found Lil Bit's fabric in the home decor section and it is a heavier fabric. The fabric for my friend's play mat came from the Juvenile Clothing section. This section has a lot of coordinating fabrics and is a little heavier than the typical calico prints. I bought 1 1/2 yards of each fabric and batting large enough to make the mats. I think I got batting big enough for a twin bed. I have a fair amount left over. The binding is double fold quilt binding. They have all kinds of colors and I found it by the thread.

First, I pinned all of the fabric together. I used my wooden yardstick to help make the circular pattern. I drilled a tiny hole in the yardstick at 21 inches and put a pin through it and the middle of the fabric into some cardboard that we had in the garage. I then took my pencil and held it at the end of the yardstick and spun the yardstick around the pin and drew a circle onto the fabric. I then cut all 4 pieces of fabric at the same time. I used the cut out fabric as a template to cut out the batting.

Next, I pinned the batting and one of the fabrics together (Bit's floral print and batting) and ironed them together. Oh yeah...I used fusible batting. Make sure to follow the directions on how to fuse batting and ONE fabric. Then, I tacked them together using design elements of the fabric. I tried to highlight them in the pics below.

Can you see the stitches running down the "vein" of the green leaf?
You might not be able to see the stitches, but you can tell it's tacked down.
I did that all over the fabric to keep the batting and fabric together.

Same thing here.
The stitches run along the left side of the yellow leaf.


Next, I ironed the other fabric (green zebra stripe) to the other side of the batting and then pinned it in place. I then followed these instructions on how to sew on the double fold quilt binding (I had to sew 2 packages of quilt binding together to fit around my circles). I have no idea if this is the correct way to sew on quilt binding, but it's what I did. :) Oh, in the tutorial, she doesn't pin the binding on, but I did.

I should have taken pictures of the steps along the way. I hope this makes sense!


Viola! You now have a super cute play mat.

Side note: It would be best if you could tack both fabrics to the batting. I also saw at Hancock fabrics where they had some reversible quilted fabric for sale. They had some really cool prints. All you would have to do is cut out the circles and put on the binding. It's already quilted!
But, I don't think you'd be able to embroider it, b/c it would show through to the other side.

If you have more questions, I'll be glad to answer them!
I'd love to be able to sell them one day. I need to practice a little more though.