FABRIC LETTERS FOR DIY BABY GIFTS

Yes, Heather is out of town so what better way to burn time after the kids have gone to sleep than complete a gift for my good friends’ new twins. So I went searching on the web aka Pinterest to look for some ideas and found fabric letters with magnets in them for the refrigerator. My inner voice said, “how hard can that be?”, clearly forgetting I can barely sew. After reading the description, I decided to modify it to meet my sewing abilities by increasing the size of the letters and since this was for two new babies, I didn’t think magnets were a good idea, so I didn’t include them in my project. So lets get going!

Difficulty: Let’s say you’ll learn to sew curves.

52 pieces of 5×5 scrap pieces of fabric

1 piece of 16×12 pice of fabric

1 bag of cotton batting

So the first thing I did was google “letter template” to find letters the appropriate size. I chose 4″ letters. In hindsight, I’d use 5″ and definitely pick and choose on the shape of the letters. Look at the “G” above, looks okay but when you translate that to fabric there is not enough room for the needed space in the middle opening for both the thread and 1/8 inch cut around when making the letter. Just keep that in mind when choosing letters. Back to the project. Print out the letters on heavy stock paper, that way you can use them more than once. Cut Out.

Next cut out 5×5 pieces of fabric. I did this three ways. First, I went to the fabric store and found packets of sixteen 5×5 pieces in eight patterns for $2.50. Mostly dots and stripes. Second, I found 16×16 pieces of fabric for $1 so I bought a bunch of those. Third, I scrounged around the house and found random pieces of fabric and cut them down. I suggest doing all the cutting prior to starting the project.

Lay out the cotton batting and cut 5″ strips. Then cut the strip into 10″ pieces. Fold the 10′ piece in half for a 5×5 piece of double thick batting.

Break into your kids coloring box and get a light colored washable marker and trace the letters onto the piece of fabric. I’m sure there are other ways of doing this but I figured I’d soak them in warm water when I was finished to get the fabric ready for kids mouths and the maker would (hopefully) wash away. I used a yellow marker for most fabrics and black for the really dark fabrics.

At this point you can decide on the fabric pattern. I used the same pattern on both front and back of the letter. I will use different patterns on the front and back of the numbers so to distinguish them from the letters. It’s totally up to you.

Lay the bottom piece of fabric pattern down then the 5×5 double batting then the fabric with the letter on it pattern up and sew your little heart out. I used a straight stitch. If your lucky, you’ll end up with this:

A pretty straight line “H” that will be easy to cut out. If you can’t sew curves, you’ll probably end up with something like this:

Damn thats ugly! but I’m pretty sure a 2 year old could give a dirty diaper about the “U” plus the good news is that you get to cut around the letter so you can at least get the optical illusion of the correct shape! Try staying about 1/8″ away from the thread.

BOOM! Two or so hours later you have this! You really start to appreciate how many letters there are in the alphabet during this project! I did NOT use fabric glue because little kids will have these in their mouths and I didn’t know the toxicity of the glue. If I was making this for bigger kids, I would probably use fabric glue to seal edges.

BAG

Now grab that 16×12 piece of fabric, fold down the top 1 1/2 inches  and sew about an inch down. Use a Z stitch. This will be for the tie off rope to go, so you should have an empty pocket at the top. Then fold in two with pattern facing inwards and sew 1/2″ from the side and bottom to form a bag. Mine is a little different because my piece of fabric was bigger.

Turn right side out and find some extra fabric for string. I found some red felt, cut a strip, tape to pencil and thread through.

and you have a bag

Stuff letter in bag, give thumbs up to utterly bored Boston terrier staring out you. Congrats, you’ve again impressed yourself, and embarrassed your friends, with your unbelievable crafty-ness!