Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Make It: Car Cozy-Play Mat


I made this little play mat for a friend's son. My friend is having a baby and her firstborn will need something to play with while his mom is in the hospital. This little mat is a great toy/carrier and it folds up super small so she can toss it in her hospital bag and not have to worry about it taking up lots of space. This would also be great for vacation!

You will need:
11x19 piece of inner fabric
11x19 piece of outer fabric
11x19 piece of batting
9x19 piece of pocket fabric
assorted felt for road and play parts
1 inch velcro
6 inches ribbon
assorted sewing notions

Gather all your materials, and get a feel for how you want the mat to look.

Fold the pocket fabric in half lengthwise, and stitch across the fold. This just gives some stability to the pocket. I liked the look and feel of two lines.

Cut out and assemble the play road onto the inner fabric. Only use the top half of the piece. You can stitch the felt on or you can use hot glue.

Pin the pocket onto the play mat with the fold towards the top. Attach the pocket with a single stitch across the bottom.

Measure, and mark 3 inch pocket lines. Make sure your top and bottom marks line up. Stitch across these lines. Make sure to go over the top a couple times to secure the opening of the pocket.

Once the pockets are stitched, it should look something like this.

For the closure strap, you can use ribbon or a scrap of the fabric. Attach velcro to the strap. Pin it to the play mat.
Attach your velcro to the outside fabric. I measured mine at 9 inches in and 3 inches down. This lined up with inside velcro. Make sure to check your velcro to make sure it lines up before you sew... otherwise you might have a date with your seam ripper.

Stack batting, play mat (face up), outer fabric (face down) and pin together.

Stitch all the way around and leave a 4-5 inch opening. Trim your corners. and flip right-side out.

Top-stitch all the way around the whole mat. Make sure to catch your opening and seal it up.

Add some cars to the mat and you have a great little travel-friendly toy!

They roll up so nicely!

Enjoy!

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