Crib Bumper Curtains

Baby bedding sets today still include crib bumpers even though the American Academy of Pediatrics cautions that they increase the risk of SIDS.  Bedding sets are generally fairly expensive, so it seems like such a waste that one of the biggest elements of the set should go unused.

My sister has a Winnie the Pooh theme going in my nephews bedroom, and at her baby shower someone gave her a beautiful Winnie the Pooh bed set.  A few months ago she gave me the crib bumpers asking if I could make something with them for the room.  Then she asked for me to make a set of blackout curtains for him.  I took one of the bumpers to the fabric store to coordinate colors, but it didn't occur to me until a few days later that I could use the crib bumpers to add personality to the curtains themselves.

So I got my seam ripper out and got to work.  The first step was simply to remove the batting from the bumper.  I decided to add the bumper to the bottom of the curtain panel, so I had to seam rip the top.

 Once I got the binding off of the top of the bumper I found that the batting was sewn in with white thread, so  I carefully seam ripped that as well and then pulled out the batting.

I measured my curtains and cut down one side of the bumper, leaving extra length to fold over.  A little ironing and you have a nice clean edge. 

I wanted the curtains to be fully black out (light proof) so I took a piece of black out curtain lining and cut it down to size.  I cut it so that there would still be enough fabric at the top op the bumper to fold over and create a pretty edge.  Measuring was a simple matter of lining them up and then cutting about a half inch from the top edge. Ultimately I just nipped the width I wanted with my scissors and then used a rotary cutter and cutting mat to trim the liner down to size.  

I put the liner inside the bumper, taking a minute to line up all of the seams and ensure that the liner fit snugly into the very bottom of the bumper.  Then I use my iron to fold over the front and back pieces of fabric at the top.  You don't want to fold them together because you are going to be sliding the bottom of your curtain into this top pocket.  You want everything folded over though so that you don't have any raw edges showing.   

So I put the bottom of my blue curtain into the top of my bumper and stitched straight across using thread to match the bumper as best I could.  I put brown thread in the bobbin to match the back bumper fabric and I put green thread up top.  I used a stronger triple thick straight stitch to hold up to all the weight.  

The final step was simply to bind up the side that I had cut down to size.  I used a 1/4 inch foot that had a special guide rail to help you make a very narrow stitch line and it worked out very well.