Circular baby changing pad

I recently saw a tutorial on Lil Blue Boo for making a ciruclar baby changing pad and had to do it!

The funny thing is, a friend of mine had one of these and I fell in love with it a couple of years ago.  They are by Patemm and are awesome with really cute designs (and I’m sure way better constructed than mine), but I couldn’d bring myself to spend $65 on it.  What can I say, sometimes I’m cheap!

Sooooooo, I was very excited to see the tutorial from Lil Blue Boo, especially when I saw how “easy” it was!

Here is the one made in the last couple of days!

It was my first shot, so I made a few mistakes.  Definitely check out the tutorial to learn how to make one yourself, but here a couple of my comments you may want to read first.

1) The best time to buy these vinyl tablecloths, is the second half of summer from TJ Maxx or Marshalls when they are starting to go on sale but before they sell out.  I went around august and most were all gone!  Luckily I found 2 that I like.  You can also buy laminated cotton from a fabric store, but it is really expensive!  I bought this tablecloth for $5…sweet =)

2) I found out the hard way, that vinyl can tear pretty easily (see sad evidence below).  It was my fault though – I was using a regular stitch length.  This actually wasn’t a problem when sewing on the bias tape – a regular stitch length is fine for that.  It is more when you are sewing the lines across the whole pad that it becomes an issue.  SO, I would recommend using a LONG stitch length (I used 4.5).

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(this is the small stitch length, too small for the vinyl)

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(this is the longer stitch length – worked much better)

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To recover from that mistake – I used nylon ribbon (the kind on the straps of backpacks) and sewed it over the 2 lines that were tearing.  I also ended up leaving a loop of it at one end to make a handle.

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In the tutorial online, Ashely sews 2 lines a third of the way in to make pockets and help guide the folding of the mat.  Similar to the Patemm pad, I went ahead and sewed 2 more lines perpendicular to the ones she described.  This makes it easy to fold in both directions.  It also makes the 2 large pockets a little more usable in my opinion.  Unfortunately it blocks off little corner pockets that you can’t really use, but I still like it.

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The other thing I did, was instead of using a button or strap closure, I put a piece of elastic on one end so that when it is closed up you can just flip the elastic over the end to keep it closed.  I felt like this would be faster and easier.

So as you can see again, this is the finished product!  The strap when folded, is a little longer than I intended and I’d probably make it smaller next time.  I apparently didn’t account for how it would fold up.  But this way I can put it on my shoulder like a purse and head to the bathroom!  Perfect for our upcoming baby!

Check out Ashley’s tutorial to make one yourself!  It took a total of about 2 hours, and that is WITH all my mistakes!

Have fun =)