DIY Crib Rail Protector

I had this post all ready to go last week.  Then on Thursday, I put my little man down for a nap in his crib.  After a few hours, I heard a big ruckus coming from his room.  I went to get him up and as I opened the door, there he was standing at the door to greet me.  The little daredevil had climbed right out of the crib! Thankfully he was not hurt.  I knew is was coming but I guess I was in denial and thought I still had another couple months.  But alas, the crib will be converted into a toddler bed tomorrow and I will have no need for this craft that I am about to share with you. *Sigh*  I literally completed this project 2 or 3 weeks ago but I enjoyed making it and hope that the tutorial is useful for you all that have babies.

I am in the process of turning my little guy's room into a "big boy" room.  He has become fascinated with airplanes over the past 9 months or so. I have transformed his room into every little pilot's dream.  My mom is an avid quilter and made a fabulous quilt for his crib/bed. I'll show the full quilt when I do the full reveal as soon as everything is in place. She sent some of the extra fabric to me and I used it to make a crib rail protector.  During his baby stage, he was quite the little beaver and completely destroyed the crib rail.  He doesn't bite it anymore so this is mainly for cosmetic purposes. This was a super easy process and even a beginner can handle this.  I am quite the beginner myself so if I can do this, you can too!

MATERIALS

Fabric

Quilted batting 

(I'm not sure this is the proper term but I have a picture of it below)

Coordinating ribbon

Coordinating thread

DIRECTIONS

Measure the length of your crib rail and add a few inches to account for seam allowances. I used an existing crib rail protector as my guide so I don't have exact measurements for you but I my son's crib rail is approximately 50 inches long.

Determine how wide you want your crib rail protector to be.  This will vary depending upon the type of crib that you have.  You want enough fabric to wrap around the rail with some excess.

Cut your fabric and quilted batting to size.  I trimmed the extra batting sticking out on the left side, below so it was not included in the width measurement. I did not have enough of my airplane pattern fabric to cover the entire length that I needed, so I inserted some coordinating red fabric to make it long enough.

Cut your ribbon approximately 8 inches long.  I cut 16 strips (8 sets).

Evenly space your sets of ribbon along the right-side of the quilted batting. 

Place the fabric on top of the quilted batting, right sides together, and pin in place, making sure to pin through the ribbon.

Sew along three sides of your fabric, leaving one of the short sides open. I used 1/4 inch seam allowances. Turn fabric right-side out, pin the open end together, and either machine sew or hand sew the end closed. 

You now have a customized crib rail protector! Hopefully you will get to use it for longer than I did!

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