This is a little blast from my sewing past. When I was pregnant with my oldest, I wanted to make some crib bumpers that would be non-gender specific in order to use it again and again. I didn’t account for a few facts:

* I love to sew
* I was inexperienced and bound to make mistakes when not using a pattern
* After a couple of kids, it’s nice to change things up a little

So I could use a new crib bumper now, even though this under the sea one has served me pretty well. Luckily, since I am too exhausted, my beautiful and talented sister in law will be putting something together to go with the maze quilt, but before Under the Sea retires, I thought I’d share.

I was immensely pleased with my little sea creatures. I googled coloring pages for a sea horse, and I drew the octopus free-hand and cut them out in felt. I had those tiny buttons in my stash, and they made great eyes. If I did it over again, I would change a few things:

* I would make ties on the top and bottom of each panel, as well as intermittently. The first bumper I made had just one tie at the top corner of each of the four sides. They hung okay, but could have used more support.
* I would buy the good felt instead of the cheap stuff. These have only been washed a few times, and they looked much worse after each washing.
* I might do something more scrappy, because the strong turquoise in this one didn’t ever really match or even remotely mesh with any of the decorations or other quilted things I made for either child.

I liked the way these little yellow fish turned out. I love texture. I only embellished the side that I would see standing from the side of the crib. The other sides, I overstuffed with doll batting, and quilted in waves:

I almost liked these sides as much as I liked the one that took all the energy. Almost. 😉