Here is a cute idea for a baby shower gift or something special for an unsettled baby. A comforter for baby which feels like a parents hand resting on the child's back, while mum or dad is able to move away and attend to other tasks.
The outside of the comforter is made from a polyester jersey fabric - soft to the touch and flexible. The inside compartment is made from calico which is hard wearing and inexpensive. This project would be suitable for the repurposing a pair of old track pants or sweater.
I have stressed in the video that this comforter should not be used as a heat bag. Babies have sensitive skin and a temperature which feels comfortable on your hand may be too warm for a baby. Also the fasteners used in this design are metal and not suitable for the microwave.
For the filling I have used dried rice. This was handy and cheap however other fillings could be used such as beads. The amount of rice you need to use will depend upon how heavy you judge your hand to be. You will want to estimate the weight of your hand and try to replicate that in the weight of your filling. I think in my case I underestimated the weight of my hand and should have used more rice. And of course, the rice should not be washed. When the comforter needs to be laundered, remove the insert and wash the cover only.
Throughout the project I have used 2 strands of DMC embroidery floss for the embroidery.
My design was drawn on transparent wash away solvy however the non transparent wash away would also be appropriate. After cutting out the mitten shape in the jersey for a front and back, I pinned the image to the fabric. The koala and tree trunk outlines were stitched with back stitch to provide a permanent outline.
The nose was then formed using a satin stitch in black DMC strands. The eyes, also in black were made with a back stitch.
Moving on the leaves,, some of these were made using satin stitch which crossed the entirety of the leaf while some had a vein down the middle of the leaf. In those cases the satin stitch crossed the whole of the lower part of the leaf where it is narrow but in the wider part of the leaf, the satin stitch went from the side to the middle of the leaf.
You will see in the video that I tore the solvy away rather than wash it away. I did this as the jersey fabric would take a whole day to dry. Washing the solvy would have been just as effective.
The red gum tree flowers were stitched with straight stitch. The pattern for the flowers has a few simple lines to guide as to the direction and length of these stitches. I added more straight stitches to fill out this feature. See our video on Straight Stitch.
The tips of the gum tree flowers are finished in French Knots in DMC floss. see our video on French Knots.
The outlines of the koala and tree trunk are now to be worked in Satin Stitch. These are simply short stitches across the Back Stitch outline. For the koala, the stitches are similar in size , however when working the tree trunk I tried to add some visual texture by making the stitches on the underside of the branch longer to provide a shadow effect. I tried a similar stitch to the right hand side of the main tree trunk.
Once the image stitching is complete the front and back pieces were stitched together using Back Stitch.
The corner between the thumb and fingers was clipped so that when turned inside out the piece would sit flat.
After turning right side out, the opening needs to be closed. To finish the open edge, the comforter edge is turned back once, then a second time and stitched down with whip stitch.
Two press studs were sewn to the inside of the edge to keep the comforter closed.
The comforter insert is made in a similar way to the outside piece. After stitching the front and back together and turning right side out, I partially filled the insert with rice then enclosed that portion of rice in a compartment using Back Stitch.
I formed 2 compartments this way and then the final quantity of rice was left to move about the lower part of the insert.
The materials used in this project were
the stretchy fleece fabric
Calico unbleached fabric
Rice
Machine sewing thread in white
Wash Away stabiliser
DMC cotton Floss in the following colours
Koala grey No 04
Black No 310
Brown No 801
Green No 501
Yellow No 17
Red No 309
Watch how this project came together on YouTube.
See our Satin Stitch video tutorial.
Look at our Satin Stitch photo tutorial on the web site.
