Fitted Crib Sheet Tutorial

Happy Wednesday! So Thanksgiving is tomorrow, can you believe it?! 

I will be spending some much needed time with my family and I probably won't be back until the weekend. So I will leave you with my latest DIY+Tutorial! This is intended for a crib mattress/toddler bed but I am using mine to put at the bottom of a playpen so I'm using a soft block of foam instead. This project took me about 45 minutes to an hour (keep in mind I was stopping periodically to snap pictures). And it was a breeze the whole way through. So give it a try! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!

 

YOU WILL NEED:

2 yards of your choice of fabric (I recommend anything soft)

Mattress or foam (I used a soft foam block measuring 22" x 36" and 4" deep)

 At least 2 yards of elastic (1" wide or smaller. I chose 3/8")

 Scissors, matching thread, measuring tape or ruler, safety pins and stick pins.

Cut out a rectangle that is 8-10" larger than your mattress on all sides. 

Fold into fourths (fold it in half and half again.) For this step it doesn't matter which side is facing where, just so long as you have one corner where all the edges are left open.

IF YOUR FABRIC IS 8" LARGER: Cut out an 8x8 square out of the open corners.

IF YOUR FABRIC IS 9" LARGER: Cut out a 9x9 square out of the open corners.

And so on...

 Take the two sides of each corner, right sides together, and sew.

This is gonna be the corners of the sheet. Repeat for all four corners. You can serge the seams, zigzag 'em or leave it raw like I did.
Again, you can serge or zigzag around the entire sheet before moving on to the next step, but I chose not to... Mainly because I don't have a serger and it's just one extra step that I don't find necessary.

 

Now for the pinning, you can go ahead and iron it down right before pinning the edges down. I folded mine over about an inch that way the channel is 1/2" wide which is perfect for my elastic which is 3/8" wide. If you've already ironed it down really well then you don't have to actually pin it all the way around. But I hate ironing soooo I just pinned it lol. 

Make sure to pin a start and stop point so that you leave an opening. I usually leave about an inch for this. You don't need a gaping hole, just enough to get the elastic in 'n out.  

To insert the elastic take one end (let's call it side A), attach a safety pin, and pin the opposite end (side B) to the sheet. Side B will act as an anchor. Start stringing side A through the channel, all the way around till it comes out the other side. When you finally get to the end go ahead and take the safety pins out and overlap the ends of elastic about an inch and sew them together using a zigzag stitch. Go back and forth a few times to ensure that they won't come apart. Tuck it back into the casing and sew the opening closed.

 That's it! You're done!