Making A Crib Rail Guard

My little girl has since decided to chew her convertible crib rails to bits (I'll be laughing when she's a teenager looking on to those little toothmarks emblazoned on the wood). I was disappointed with the guards available online (both quality and price), and my humble attempts to wrap the rails with swaddling blankets didn't look aesthetically pleasing or remain functional.

I decided that I would like to sew a rail guard. A custom design work better anyway since my crib rails are unique and my daughter likes to chew on multiple parts. A family member recently gave me an old sewing machine. It lacked a few essential parts and emitted a foul odor every time it was on, but after viewing several hours worth of "how to sew" videos on Youtube, I got it working. 

I followed the pattern outlined on this blog, although as I said before, I had to customize based on the uniqueness of the crib design and Baby's propensity to chew. But overall, my process went as follows:

Buy: 
3 yd fabric
1 yd single faced quilted fabric
~20 ft ribbon for ties

It cost me about $20, which was cheaper than buying the low quality plastic things I found online. You have to make 3 parts--2 shorter side rail pieces and 1 long front rail piece.

I measured the rails added two inches to the dimensions on both sides to the decorative fabric, then cut the single faced quilted fabric (SFQF) exact. Iron the edges, pin on the SFQF, pin on the ribbons and sew. Backstitch over the ribbons to secure them. And...

Ta da! Functional, customized, and if I may say so, pretty as well. Really talented sewers can attack this project with multiple contrasting fabrics. I didn't want to pay for more fabric, nor did I feel like doing more math and sewing, so I stuck with one. 

I did run into the hitch of not having enough ribbon, and I didn't want to go out to the store again to buy more, so I made my ties from spare fabric. While cost effective, this was really time consuming, so I don't recommend it. Several hours later, I ended up with...

You don't need to be an expert at sewing. This is the first project I've ever done, and while it doesn't look perfect close up, it's sturdy and does the job. I'm really happy with it, and even had a friend ask me to sew her one!