Hand-Sewn Felt Baby Mobile

The weeks are melting away here and we’re staring at a due date ONE WEEK from now…!!! It seemed like an appropriate time to a) step up the posting pace and b) post at least something baby-related. This baby mobile was a ton of work, but the totally mindless, doable kind. Hand-sewing is tedious but also somehow relaxing.

I won’t be posting much in the way of how-to specifics, because I bought the plans for the baby mobile from this lovely shop on Etsy, and I won’t reproduce any of her original content. Just wanted to share a baby DIY before he shows up and things get crazy! I fell in love with this super cute baby mobile design with all the undersea creatures:

Because I’d never hand-sewn anything before in my life, I relied heavily on Youtube videos to teach me how to do a blanket stitch. (The instructions provided in the kit are great if you already know what you’re doing!) Pretty much all of the animals are sewn with a blanket stitch, and just a few of them required what the author called an “invisible stitch” – something that I could find zero references to online that made sense in the context of these animals.

Usually, what the internet knows as an “invisible stitch” is used for closing up pillows and things of that sort, but the stitch in this context was meant to act like glue: attaching one piece of felt on top of another without any sort of visible stitching. The instructions about this stitch were a little unclear (not surprising, given English isn’t the author’s first language) and when I reached out for clarification, it wasn’t super helpful. But I figured it out!

Just in case this is helpful for anyone who stumbles here looking for help, here’s a diagram of how to use stitches to “glue” one piece of felt on top of another:

The needle gets pulled all the way through the bottom layer and part of the way through the top layer – which is a little tricky, especially when there’s a contrast between that color and the color of thread you’re using. You need to grab enough of the material to give it strength but not so much that the thread shows through. Fortunately, felt is pretty forgiving so mistakes are easy to go back and correct 🙂 (Which I did.  A lot!)