Chrstmas Tree Skirt to Kids Play Mat

Hello Readers. Today's project is a play mat for my little guy. He was 5 months old when I made this and he needed a soft place to play. It started with this mauve Christmas tree skirt. I was not a big fan of the mauve, and I already had a tree skirt we used every year. This circle shape was great and the material was in wonderful condition.

Christmas Tree Skirt to Play Mat

I was going to cover the mauve material with this cute blue and green flannel.  (Similar flannel fabric here.) It was super soft and would be nice for my Sweet Pea while he learned to roll over and crawl.

I wanted to use as much of the fabric and waste as little of the fabric as possible so I cut the fabric one half at a time. I started by folding the quilted tree skirt in half and spreading it out on the edge of the fabric for cutting. I used the tree skirt as a pattern for my cutting.

I did some cutting. Cut, cut, cut. I cut a half circle around the quilt with a 1" seam allowance all the way around. That would allow me room for the new seams when I sewed it all together.

 

 Here is my second half circle. The way I positioned the tree skirt on the flannel fabric was the best way to use the flannel with the least waste. I put them together with the right sides facing each other and sewed the straight sides together to make a full circle.

I put my new flannel circle on top of my tree skirt and sewed with a straight stitch around the circle close to the edge of the tree skirt. I wanted the new flannel fabric to cover the tree skirt design. I placed the flannel circle right side up, on top of the tree skirt. Once I sewed it onto mauve side the quilt, I had to cut off the excess hanging off all around the edges.

Cut, cut, cut. I trimmed the excess fabric off the edge of the tree skirt the way you trim excess pie dough off the edges of a pie pan.  I tried to sew on the very edge of the tree skirt but you can see how the edge shows just a tiny bit of the mauve tree skirt. That's OK. I have a plan for that.

Here is the extra bias tape my sweet daughter made for a past project. It is 1 inch double fold bias tape. I pinned it all the way around the circle. It covers all the fabric edges (On the top and the bottom.) that I don't want seen. You can use any bias tape you want, and you can find almost every color at your closest fabric store or online.

Here is the bias tape being sewn to the play mat. The bias tape  wraps around the edge of the mat on top and bottom.

Here is the coolest part of the mat. You can see where the ends of the bias tape meet. I folded the end of the bias tape under so it would look neat but it is not sewn closed. I pinned a safety pin to the end of the ribbon and threaded the satin ribbon through the inside of the bias tape. The ribbon went all around the mat and both ends of ribbon stuck out of the opening where the ends of the bias tape meet. When I pulled on the ends of the ribbon, it pulled the circle together and it turned into a bag to hold the toys. That means easy clean up and easy traveling with all those toys you MUST take to grandpa's house. Any cord or string you want to use would work. I had ribbon on hand so I used that.

( If you are worried the string could get caught on something, or be dangerous to your baby, you can skip the drawstring.)

 

 Here is the mat pulled tight like a bag. I could fit so many toys and stuffed animals in here. It was all washable too, which is important with kids, they are messy!

Here you can see the center seam where the 2 half circles of flannel were sewn together from the beginning of this project. There is a cute baby and dad on the mat so you can see how that works too. Thanks for reading. Now, go out there and make something fabulous! 

 

It has been 8 years since I put this mat together. That is the same baby but he grew quite a bit. We still use the mat but now we use it for Lego blocks. Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself. Or your kid!

***Year End Update***- We use this everyday. It holds a million Legos.