Super Neat-o Happy Nappy Time nap! :)

Have you missed me?!? I have missed YOU!! We had a bit of a plumbing catastrophe.. ie. black water pouring down my wall in the laundry room (and flooding it- twice) from a kitchen sewage back-up. OH, how I love OLD cast iron pipes! BLECK! That meant one afternoon with a plumber instead of my sewing machine. Another day my mother in law came to visit and one day I spent making some re-usable snack bags and sandwich wraps. But.. my super duper awesome and exciting project is a NAP MAT! I am in love with this and hope to make many more for other people!! :)
It started out as this:

I made this one with just the mat cover and attached pillow case. I can easily modify it and add a blanket that is attached. This has a velcro closure at the bottom of the mat and the pillow case as well.
I hate raw edges, so I made sure to encase them all in this cover. I used a french seam for the length of the cover and for all of the other seams I folded over twice to enclose and then top stitched. :) Have I mentioned my love for the French seam?!
Here's a quickie on how to make one!

Sew fabric WRONG sides together.

I sewed using a larger seam allowance and then trimmed off the slevage afterwards (as seen here).

Flip the fabric so RIGHT sides are facing and sew, being sure your seam allowance is large enough to completely encase the seam allowance from the first step.

And VIOLA! Lookie there!! A gorgeous French Seam!!! *applause*! No little frayed bits!

After sewing the main body of the mat cover, I sewed the pillow case.

 I first sewed the short ends (where you insert the pillow).

 

LOVE this fabric!!

Then, I turned it RIGHT sides facing and sewed ONLY the TOP together. I left the bottom open because I was going to attach it to the top of the mat cover and it would be sewn shut at the same time as the mat cover.

In this picture, the seam on the right side is actually the top of

 the case and the bottom edge there is open (to insert pillow).

Now, here is where I had to think. Hard. I had to think hard because I had to figure out how to attach the pillow case to the top of the nap mat all in the same seam... this may seem easy peasy, but it hurt my little noggin!! I FINALLY *thought* I had it figured out so I went for it!

(Pretend that brown dot fabric is folded over one more time... mmkay?!).

You can see here how I inserted the case into the mat.

Even though I think pinning is for pansies, I went ahead and pinned it all together here.

Then I sewed it and turned it...

.. did a little bit of this....

and..

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog, it WORKED!!

I inserted the pillow and  mat and then folded it to see how much I had to hem at the bottom.

It turned out to be a few inches. So, I hemmed it with a generous seam allowance

and then I added a long strip of velcro.

Same thing on the pillow case (it is only pinned in the picture, but I did sew it down!) :)

I sewed a long length of ribbon on to the bottom of the mat so you can tie it up all pretty-like!

Isn't it just so pretty!?!

Now, I just need someone to tell me that I do NOT need some of this yummy fabric for myself!