I know, it's been a long time and I'm sorry. I really haven't been crafting much. Yes, blasphemy. Haha... Life has really been taking some interesting twist and turns over the last three months. We decided to become foster parents, but happened to get a bad agency where the director was really off his rocker. =( I'll spare you the drama. I spoke with a new agency a couple weeks ago and they seem sooooo much better. Moving on... Our area has a high demand for newborn foster homes so bring back that crib!
Instead of going with the boring or pricey crib sheets out there I decided to make one of my own. My daughter had an animal/Noah's Ark themed nursery so this one will run right along that line. I came across a tutorial on Dana Made It first and have since seen a couple other patterns. I basically followed her pattern with only a few tweaks. I used two yards of prewashed fabric and began with 80" of 1/4" elastic. I folded my fabric into 4ths and cut it at 33.5" across the top raw edge. The salvage side didn't meet the 22.5" requirement so I didn't cut it; it was actually 21". Although I was slightly short on the width it wasn't a problem in the end and the bonus was me not having to hem the edge. With my fabric still folded in 4ths I cut an 8"x8" square out of the non folded corner. If you see Dana's tutorial you will see just what I mean.
After sewing up the corners just as she instructed I zigzag stitched my short ends to keep them from fraying. Remember they are the only cut portion besides the four corners which I also zigzag stitched after sewing those seams together. If you've never done this here's all I do... I make my stitches closer together then the average zigzag stitch. On my sewing machine it's 2.5. When the needle goes to the left it hits fabric and to the right I let if "fall off" the fabric. It causes it to slightly roll the fabric and keep it from fraying.
Alright now for my questions from all the tutorial's I saw. How much fabric is left to fold under the mattress? First off let me say, I bought this mattress in January 2009 from Walmart. It is a standard American crib mattress. After sewing the corners together and finishing the raw edges with the zigzag stitch I put the sheet on to see if it will actually fit.
The sides had 2.5" to wrap under.
The ends had 3" to wrap under. I find the difference only being .5" interesting seeing how the sides are each 1.25" (counting hem) short of the pattern.
What does the bottom of the mattress look like with the sheet on? Am I the only one who thought that?
Do I really need 80" of elastic?
I didn't want there to be a mishap on my sheet's watch so I measured my elastic, but didn't cut it. I marked it at 72" and 80". After running the elastic through which let me say was a task, I put it on the mattress and tightened it until I felt it held well. I ended up taking off 14". So 60" is what I used. Also, I overlapped my ends 1" when sewing them together. Which brings me to another question...
How much do I turn the fabric under for the elastic casing?
I turned my under 5/8" and sewed it at 1/4". Normally I would have only turned it under 1/2" and sewed it at 1/8", but I wanted more room for error.
In the end, I love the results. Now I need to go make a flower sheet for my mom's foster daughter.
Dana, thanks for the fun tutorial!
