Elena has one of those Memory games — you know the kind — matching pictures on cardboard cards. She is enjoying learning how to play the game (although my goodness, it can be frustrating getting her to fully understand the rules!), and likes the pictures.
And Julia also loves the cards and the pictures. Yay, right??!? Problem is, Julia is still in the stage of putting everything in her mouth. Well, everything that’s not food that is — silly girl just barely eats food but give her a non-food item and WHOOSH, into the mouth it goes! EVERYTHING! SO, Julia chews up the cardboard cards and there are several half-eaten ones strewn through-out the house.
So fabric to the rescue!
I had seen this tutorial back in December and I’ve been vaguely looking for a fabric to do it with since then. And I decided on two — the Baby Geniuses panel and the Brown Bear panel!
The Baby Geniuses panel one is *almost* done, but my gosh, to get doubles it is 52 cards for the alphabet and 24 more for the numbers. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll show it off when finished.
But I did rapidly finish the Brown Bear cards for a birthday gift this past weekend:
Unlike the tutorial, I did sew around all the edges. I didn’t think it would last through the girls’ hard use (um, chewing) otherwise. I did a tight satin stitch. And My Goodness does it ever suck up the thread. I went through 4 bobbins just for this project!
Luckily, I only needed one panel of the Brown Bear fabric and had enough for doubles of all the animals. Unfortunately I neglected to take a picture of all the animals, but I do have 2 more panels just waiting for me to make more sets. I didn’t use the wording on the panel because the blocks would have been 5.5″ that way. Cutting inside the words gave me 4″ squares. Perfect size!
I also made a drawstring bag, but did a simpler one than the one in the tutorial. And I used a scrap from the edge of the panel for the drawstring!
I did this all in one day (took some time to do all the satin stitching so I won’t say ‘a couple hours’ because that would be a lie) and had a great gift for a 1-year-old little girl! It was at least a winner in our house — Elena didn’t want to give it away!
And it’s chewable!
Filed under: Crafting |
I'm nanann! I am a 30-something mom to 2 beautiful girls (6 and 4) living in Austin, Texas. I LOVE quilting and have recently taken up sewing clothes since it is just too much fun to do for my girls. This blog is a little bit about my quilting (or making of “woogies” as they’re known in my household) and other crafts, and a little bit about my two girls.
Nanann's Woogies & Whatnots 
SO cute! I’m going to have to steal this idea 🙂
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
I found your blog through the bloggers quilt festival. I noticed the brown bear square on the side and came to this page. I just finished making a quilt with Brown Bear fabrics for my daughter’s class where she teaches kindergarten in Maplewood, NJ. I made her a flannel board story set but I like your idea of the memory game even better. I may have to go buy more fabric and make the game too!
Thanks for coming and checking me out! I like the idea of a flannel board set — never thought of that! But the memory game is great — the girls love it and I’m sure your daughter’s class would too. I’ll forewarn you though that satin-stitching the edges like I did takes a TON of thread.
Good luck!