How to Make a Nap Mat

Whether your child goes to day care of not, a nap mat is a nice thing to have. You can use them at friend's houses, and lay them on the floor at your feet at church.

You can make a simple, easy mat, or an elaborate one. Here are two ideas for easy ones.

Step one

#1 The simplest way to make a nap mat is first to decide exactly how large you would like it to be, then make a trip to a store that sells fabric. Buy material you like, you will need two lengths, one for the front and one for the back. You can use the same material for both, or coordinating material. Get some strong thread or yarn to match for knotting or quilting the mat.

For padding, you could use several things. If you have an old worn out quilt or flannel blanket at home, that can go between your two pieces of material as padding. You can also use quilt padding that you buy in the store. The thicker the better, so your child will be comfortable.

Buy blanket binder to finish out your pad.

A large quilting hoop would be a help, although it's not necessary.

#2 A second way to make a nap mat is to save all your families old blue jeans, and cut them into squares, all the same size. Then sew the squares together until you have the size of mat you want. You can sew these squares with the cut edge out, or in. Leave the edges out is the cutest way, although you will need to trim them the first few times you wash the mat.

As before, you will also need to buy a length of material for the back. Bandana type material goes well with this idea. Buy red yarn to tie it with.

Step two

#1 Now that you have your material and padding, place the material you want for the back side on the table, right side down. Lay the padding on top, then the front of your nap mat, right side up, on top of that.

Now take your thread or yarn, thread it through a needle, and every so often, draw up the ends through both pieces of material and padding, and knot it. Put a knot every few inches on your nap pad. If your material has a design, you can also 'quilt' it. I bought material once with bees on it and the bees had little dashes behind them, supposedly to show they were flying. I quilted the dashes, and it was really, really cute!

#2 Now proceed as above. Lay the material out for the back of the mat on the table, right side down. Lay your padding on top of that, and your blue jean squares, right side up, on top of that. Now, thread your yarn through a large eyed needle, and make knots, going through all layers of the pad, right in the middle of each blue jean square.

Step three

#1 Once you have finished knotting or quilting your pad, trim the edges neatly, and sew your binding around it. There you have a nap mat.

#2 Once you have finished knotting all the squares, you are ready to finish off the mat. An easy, nice way to do this is to fold the edges of the back of the mat over the top of the padding, covering it neatly and evenly, but leaving the edges of the blue jean squares unfolded (this is especially cute if you have left the cut edges of each blue jean square on the outside, rather then inside). Once you've got the back all folded down, sew a zig zag around the mat, leaving the cut edge of the blue jeans unfolded and jutting past your stitches. You will need to trim the fraying edges of the blue jeans squares the first couple of times you wash the mat, but soon they will not need trimming any more.

Have fun making a unique nap mat for your child!