Felt Travel Mat Tutorial

Hi everyone! I'm Jaime from Our Journey and I'm guest blogging for Amanda today! I feel like I'm sitting at the "popular table" ... my heart is beating fast, my palms are sweaty ... this is my first guest blogger experience! When Amanda asked me to guest blog and share a tutorial for my Travel Felt Mat, I was immediately excited ... then panicked! Whoa! That's a lot of people checking out my "blogging skills" ... I hope I live up to her expectations ... and yours! Thanks Amanda for the opportunity to contribute today! So let's get to it shall we?

Travel Felt Mat

We live in Europe and do a lot of traveling ... this little fold-n-go felt mat with storage pockets has been a hit with my 2 year old son.

Materials

Felt, Cute Fabric, Iron-On Velcro

Step 1: Lay your "cute" fabric face down on your felt

Step 2: Cut your fabric 18" long by 11" wide

Step 3: Sew three of your sides together (both long sides and one short side)
It will look like an inside out "pillowcase"!

Step 4: Turn your "pillowcase" inside out so the printed side of your fabric is facing out. Press with an iron for nice crisp edges.

Step 5: Now, for the little tab that keeps your felt mat rolled-up secure! Cut a scrap piece of your fabric, approx. 10" long by 3" wide.

Step 6: Fold the scrap piece in half (right sides facing eachother) and sew three sides (just like you did for the main piece). Turn it inside-out and iron ... now it will look like the photo above!

Step 7: Now insert the edge of that cute little tab into the open side of your "pillowcase". Now sew your "pilowcase" closed, sewing the little tab into the seam as you go.

Step 8: So lets make those edges look nice ... you're almost done! Sew a nice straight stitch around all 4 edges of your felt mat.

Step 9: Now, let's make that storage pocket! Fold one side of your felt mat in about 4 inches ...

Step 10: Sew up along both edges to make that pocket ...

Step 11: Find your center point of the pocket and make a straight stitch up the middle ... now you have 2 pockets!

Step 12: Now to finish it off! Take a small square of your iron-on velcro and iron it on the inside of your tab (Don't iron directly on the velcro ... just press it from the other side!)

Step 13: Fold your cute little mat in thirds and iron on the the other piece of velcro!

Voila! You're done!

Now find some felt scraps and have fun creating little felt play scenes!
I hope you made it through the tutorial without any "what the?" shouted at the computer screen! If you have any questions just leave a comment here or on my blog and I'll help you out!

Jamie...thank you so much!!! That little travel book is precious. Now I just need you to list this aodrable creation in your etsy shop so I can pay you to make one for me. As easy as you made it look, I can barley sew a straight line and I doubt I could handle it! Oh...and for the record, I always hated the poplular table. So let's call this the amazingly cool crafty table...how about that? Soooooo much better than the poplular table, right? I hope everyone will welcome Jamie at our "cool" table and leave her lots and lots of comments and hellos! It was great having you Jamie. Thanks for sharing your awesome skills with us.