Monday, February 27, 2012

DIY Crib Railing Cover


Many of my friends with children had warned me about their sweet little ones destroying their beautiful solid wood convertible crib that was supposed to last until they went to college by chewing it to slivers the second their first two teeth escaped their gums.  We were lucky enough to be given a crib in perfect condition from a friend we trusted, and painted it white to suit our nursery.  What I didn't consider was that when my darling offspring started to gnaw on it, the paint would peel off, leaving it looking rather, uh, not cute. 
So I've been meaning for a while to make something to cover the rails of Norah's crib, because all those little rodent teeth have made the painted surface look like this: 



I know there are plastic covers you can buy, but those only fit over the front rail, and by this point the paint is so chipped that I didn't want to be able to see it through a clear plastic cover.  And, that would not solve the problem with the side rails, which she seems to prefer to scrape those little teeth on over the front rail anyway. 

I had leftover fabric from her nursery projects, and decided to make a cover using those.  I don't have step by step photos of the process (late night sewing without anyone else in the house awake to take photos) but the project was really simple for anyone with basic sewing skills.  

First, I measured the length of the long side of the crib to get my desired finished length for the cover.  I added 1/2" seam allowances for each section of fabric.  For the underside, I just used one long piece of microfleece I had lying around in my stash. 

I decided on a pattern I wanted and cut the fabric sections, allowing for 1/2" seams.  I stitched the top pieces together one section at a time, and then repeated for the back side, so I had two strips of fabric.  I joined them with one long seam across the top, so that when it was folded in half the patterns would be facing the right direction on either side.  



Next, I cut about 10" lengths of ribbon for each tie, finished the raw ends by running a lighter over them quickly to seal the ribbon, and pinned them onto right side of the fabric, pointing inwards towards the middle (looks backwards from how you want them to end up facing at this point).  On top of that, I pinned the fleece with the right side facing in, so the ribbons were sandwiched in between, and stitched around the entire thing, leaving a small opening to turn it right side out.  Carefully, since there were still pins inside, I turned it out, removed the pins and then I finished the opening with a small hidden stitch, and that is that! 


You might notice the teeth marks remaining on the end rails...yeah, still need to make two shorter covers for those! 



Progress! Now I just need to hang the curtains, photo collage, and hooks back up and her "new" room will be complete following the move.  It was finally looking so great at my mom's, and then we had to go and move everything into total disarray...it's only been 2 months since we moved, so it's not like I'm totally delinquent with setting her room up again, right?

3 comments:

  1. You are so endlessly talented! I love it!!

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  2. Hi, Tanya! Thanks so much for stopping by this morning to help me with my rug decision:)

    This crib cover is so cute! Wow, amazed at your sewing skills...I'm so jealous! Norah is beautiful, congratulations! I'm going to have fun reading back through all your posts and catching up with her!

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  3. a) Aidan is exactly right. What a cool solution!
    b) rodent teeth made me laugh out loud :)
    c) for some reason I stopped getting my email updates when you post - catching up now! I missed three posts!

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