Nursery Projects: Crib Bumper Pads

I am an extreme amateur seamstress, and I was reminded of this again and again during this project... Also, I found all the tutorials on bumper pads I looked up to be confusing or too complicated for my basic knowledge. The following is a crib bumper how-to based on what I learned. This is mostly for me so that if I decide to do this again (at this point in time, I hope to never), I'll know how to do this a lot smoother and better. And... it's like a how-to for dummies, only.. written by a dummie. Also, just to let you know, this creates one big long connected bumper, not 6 individual pieces.

Basic Crib Bumper How-To:

1. First, before anything, read ALL the directions. More than once. Make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you start. Second, measure the inside of your crib and make sure the measurements will fit what's listed or modify them so your bumper pads will fit correctly. Third, check our where your ties will tie onto the crib. This tutorial is assuming there is a bar exactly in the middle of the crib in the front and back, if not you'll have to figure out some different way to get your ties on in the right spot (on mine there actually isn't, so my pads are a bit askew).

2. Materials
-The pads. I bought pre-cut pads with a 50% off coupon from Joann's for $15 (they ended up being a little bit too big in my crib so make sure to check and trim them down before you start if needed). You could use whatever batting you want, but these bumpers are cut into six 10"x1"x26" pieces.
-The exterior fabric. 2 yards. You will have extra with 2 yards, so if you can think of a better way to make this work, do it.
-This interior fabric, also 2 yards. (You can do all different color and pattern combinations, I just decided to use 3 colors)
-The ties. 24" x 24" piece. (I wish I had made my ties longer than 24" for the corner bars because those bars are way chunkier on my crib, so again, check out your crib before you start!)
-The extra corner color (in my case it's the orange pieces at the corners-see pictures at the bottom of post). This is optional and you could do more or less than I did.  32" x 11 3/4" piece.
-Obv. a sewing machine and whatever color thread you want to use. Other basic sewing supplies. An iron.

3. Prep
-Cut the pads to fit your crib if necessary (NOTE that my measurements are for the 10"x1"x26" pads as they come, so you'll need to adjust accordingly)
-Cut interior and exterior fabric into 12 (6 of each) 11 3/4" x 27 1/2" strips.
-Cut 12 2" x 24" (or longer if you want) strips for the ties.
-Cut 8 corner pieces 4" by 11 3/4" (you could add these at all the seams, I just decided to only put them at the crib corners).

Navy: exterior strips / Light blue: interior strips / Small orange: corner pieces / Long orange: ties

4. The orange 'corner pieces' for lack of a better name: (This step will give you 3"- not extra, it overlaps the navy- of orange at both ends of two exterior panels, and on one end of each of the 4 remaining exterior panels). Lay 4 'corner pieces'-front against front-against the ends of 2 exterior long strips, 3" in from the end. Sew, fold out and iron. Do the same with the remaining 4 pieces on only one end of the remaining 4 exterior strips. This will double your fabric layers at the corners, but you could just make the exterior strips shorter and sew these to the ends so that there's only one fabric layer, and the length is still 27 1/2". This picture below should help you better understand what this step will make your end product look like. Note that at the end of this step your strips will still be 27 1/2" long, you are overlapping the orange over the navy, not adding it to the end.

5. The ties: Basically fold everything in so there are no raw edges and iron, iron, iron. Specifically... fold 1/2 inch in on every edge and then fold the ties in half 'hot dog' style then iron the crap out of them so they'll stay put when you sew. Then sew closed all of the edges. They will end up looking like this (but probably prettier).

5. Find the center of your ties and fold them in half. Pin the fold to the top and bottom of the short side (11 3/4") of your exterior strips so that two ties will get sewn into each seam of your long strips in this next step: Sew your exterior pieces together along the short side (11 3/4") so that you have one long strip of fabric (you will have 2 ties left over, but don't worry). Two ties will be sewn into the top and bottom of each seam. On the exterior pieces, make sure you are lining up orange ends with orange ends, and blue ends with blue ends, so you will only have orange at the corners. Do the same with the interior pieces (minus the ties and the orange corners). This will give you two long strips of fabric (one with two ties sewn into each seam).

In this picture my strips are sewn into loops. DO NOT do that, I had to rip out seams so that they made two long strips instead. Also, you'll notice my ties aren't sewn into the seams, another mistake I made and I had to sew them on after, which was a pain.

5. Put the two long strips together face-to-face and pin the top and bottom together making sure the seams line up. Sew the top and bottom together leaving you with one long tube with an opening at each of the short (11 3/4") ends. Turn the tube right-side-out. It will be like a really long skinny pillowcase with an opening at either end. The picture above shows half of the two strips sewn along only the top, not the bottom yet.

6. Time to stuff your tube with the pads. I found this to be easiest if you fold over each pad longways to slide inside, start with the innermost pads and work your way out, and adjust each pad to where you want it as you go. These are the pads I bought.

7. Sew the end of your bumper pad tube together. I am sure there is a better way to do this, but this is just the only thing I could come up with at this point. Tuck in the raw ends of each end of the tube. Pin these two ends together with the folds of your last two ties tucked into the top and bottom and sew it all together. It will look like this (but hopefully a LOT cleaner). You can do this so the yucky edge faces in or out, depends on where you think it will show the less. I decided to do it so it was facing the inside of the crib. Once you straighten this all out and put it in the crib, you really can't see this edge very well.

Ta-Da! It will look like this! Only much better and hopefully if you did it right (unlike me) the bumpers will actually fit the crib.

When a more patient and less frustrated Shad got home he actually worked the pads around so they weren't bulging anymore. It made me feel a little bit better about not making them the perfect size.

So there you have it. After a lot of trial and error I made some crib bumper pads. I guess I justify  the imperfections with the fact that I did this basically on my own and I've never tackled a project like this before!