First Tutorial : Interchangeable Baby Wrist Rattle

This is my first tutorial. Yay..
I've been sewing a couple of things for the new baby of the family.. my niece. I made a baby rattle for her one a whim.. and since my camera was next to me, I thought I'll try and give a tutorial a go. The idea for the rattle is to wrap around baby's wrist.. and it would make a rattling sound when baby flaps her arms around :).
The lighting in the room where I sew is HORRIBLE for picture taking.. so please do excuse the quality of the pictures.. with no further adeu, I give you.. the Interchangeable Baby Rattle..

First, what you need..

I hand sew some of the components here, but it can be done with the machine as well.. So, you'ld need

• Sewing paraphenelia, like thread, needle, scissors.. basic stuff
• Fabric scrap with cute characters on it. I had some China Flannel with Hello Kitty printed on it.. soft and cute. Also enough scrap that's long enough for the strap.. mine's approximately 15 cm.
• Bells.. for the rattling :)
• Polyester Filling
• Velcro
• snaps (optional)

Identify a back piece, big enough to cover your chosen character. Sew on the 'soft' side of a velcro piece, approximately at the center. I didn't do any measurements here.. and winged it based on the size of the character I was gonna do.

 Cut out your front piece.. make sure you cut around the character that you want with a sizeable seam allowance. Don't worry about bulk, we'll trim it later.
Place it on your back piece, right sides together.


Sew around your desired character. I hand sew here.. but you could do this with the machine if you wanted to. Remember to leave an opening for you to turn out.

With a pinking shear.. or a normal scissors, cut close to your sew line. If you're using normal scissors, do nip the curves to have a nicer seam once you turn it right side out.
OK.. at this point.. I didn't take any pictures (sorry..)
So you turn your character right side out, fill it about 3/4 full with the filling. Then place the bell in the middle, and continue filling it up. Slip stitch the opening, and you'll have something like this.

Now we move on to the strap.

Take a piece of scrap fabric, the length is the desired length of the strap. Mine was approximately 5 cm by 15 cm.

Fold it into half, wrong sides together and sew, making a tube.

Flip it out, press it so that the seam is in the middle (I hope you can see it in the image below)

Turn in the sides and sew (close up the tube)

Take a 'rough' piece of velcro. This piece should match up with the piece that's sewn onto the back of the character earlier. Sew it onto the middle of the strap.

We're almost there..

At this point, I sewed on some snap ons to secure the strap. Now this is optional, you can also use velcro, which in retrospect, would have been a better choice as it's easier to put on and remove.. and the velcro could be a long strip to accomodate for the varying circumference of a baby's wrist.

Stick on the character, and youre' done :)

Sew more characters, and you can interchange the rattle to give baby some variety.

I hope this tutorial made sense to you.. do drop me a note if I've confused you at any step...
Phew.. I salute all you amazing bloggers who write amazing tutorials on your blogs.. it is truly a tedious, time consuming task...

If you do make one, please do link back.. I would love to see the versions you make.
I'd appreciate also if you keep this tutorial for personal use only.. thanks :)

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