I spent about a week in stores and online looking for crib bedding that is gender neutral, and that didn't have some sort of animal on it. No luck. I found a few really cute things on Etsy, but I couldn't justify spending 4-8 HUNDRED dollars on crib bedding... which is mostly for show anyway. And most bedding sets still come with bumpers (which have been deemed unsafe nowadays.)
So I decided to make my own! I haven't done anything but the rail guards yet, but they turned out so well I wanted to post them. I took some inspiration from
this blog, but just read it over once and didn't look at it again, so my own crib rail guards are really quite different. In which case, I decided to make a tutorial in case anyone else wanted to try. They only took me about 4 hours to make!
I will explain how I measured my crib, so you can measure your own and come up with your own measurements.
1. Measure your crib.
Taking the tape measure and wrapping around the rail itself to find its girth, I found that mine was about 12.5 inches around. So I added 5.5 inches to this to allow for "fluff" and seams.
Measure the length of each rail on the INSIDE of the crib. The rail guards won't cover the corners. I came up with 26.5 for the short rails and 52 for the long rail. I added 2 inches for seams, but looking back I should have been more generous. If I were you I'd add at least 4 inches total per piece. However, the instructions will continue with the measurements I actually used.
From here on out I will assume your measurements are the same as mine.
2. Buy the fabric and ribbons and lace (optional) and cut it.
You'll need 3 yards of something soft, and wash it and dry it before so it won't shrink after you sew. You'll also need 3 yards of crib batting. I was also making a blanket, so I was OK with having left over, so I bought a giant bag of it.
I also got 4 yards of ribbons (2 of white, 2 of cream). I think. Maybe it was 3 of each?? Oh well, you can figure that out later. I'll help.
Cut out TWO copies of the above diagram of both the fabric AND the batting. You'll need DOUBLE of what I've shown above. I just folded mine in half and cut them both at the same time. My fabric was actually bigger than 1 yard on the side so I had left overs. Some fabric is actually 36 inches on the side so you'd be in luck.
So once you've cut everything, you should have 4 pieces of 18x27 fabric, 2 pieces of 18x54 fabric, 4 pieces of 18x27 batting, and 2 pieces of 18x54 batting.
3. Starting pinning everything together.
Putting the right sides of the fabric together, make a sandwich like this: Batting, fabric, fabric, batting.
Now would be a good time to trim up the batting so its all flush.
Next, temporarily pin the layers together. Lay the layers over the crib railing so you can figure out where you want your ties to be. It will be different for each crib. Once you figure it out, temporarily pin the ties on the fabric where they should go. You're going to un-pin these and put them on the inside of the sandwich in a minute.
I guess I should explain the ties... they need to be about 8 inches each, and you'll need 2 for each "tie site". I decided to have 4 "tie sites" on each side of the crib, which was a total of 24 ties I had to cut. So that's not hard math for you to do on your own when buying ribbon.
Now if you are doing lace or trim, I highly recommend using Wonder Tape to told the lace in place. Then place your ties on top of the lace as shown in the picture. Do this for BOTH sides and make sure the ties are laying opposite each other. Then close the sandwich on top of them and pin.
Now I was really worried about not getting my stitching perfectly straight on that lace and messing it all up. So I did this with a ruler and some chalk:
I only did this on the first one... I got more confident and didn't do the hem line with chalk on the other parts. But if you do try it, use something other than pink chalk. That stuff gets everywhere.
4. Start sewing everything together.
Sew along the hem lines on each side (being careful to catch the ribbons without them falling out of place). Then sew up the third side.
Turn the guard right-side-out and go lay it on your crib and tie it down. This way you can be sure the very last edge you close up is done at the right spot.
You're going to have to close up the 4th side by hand. It was my least favorite part, but I got it down pretty well by the third guard I did.
Once you'd decided where to close up the fourth side, fold in the raw edges and pin it in place.
Then in order to keep the edges looking pretty, I did this funny little fold so that the stitches would stay inside the crease. Hopefully the picture makes sense. Then I just did a whip-stitch to close it all up, and I was done!
Please let me know if anything didn't make sense!
