Bedside Valentines for my Girls, Part 1

Both of my girls have had colds for the past week, which moved this project to the top of my to-do list. My girls share a room and neither of them has a beside table. At night, we hang their much-needed glasses on the closest door handle, position their sippy cups of water in a corner of their beds, and when they are sick, I just put a tissue box on the corner of their bed. I have had this idea in my mind for a while…to create hanging holders for all of the things that they need at night or close at hand when they wake up: a hanging tissue box holder, a pocket to tuck their eyeglasses in and a sippy cup holder. This week, I accomplished the first two, but I still need to make the sippy cup holders.

I started this project on Tuesday. First, I brewed myself a large mug of English Breakfast tea and sat down at the table to sketch out my plans.

The hardest part about coming up with the pattern was deciding what technique I was going to use. I finally decided to make the tissue box holder with corner seams and a lining to cover the batting and seams. I cut two squares of fabric (one for the lining and one for the exterior fabric) and removed the corners. I also cut out a heart shape to applique to the front of the holder.

Once I had appliqued the heart to the fabric, I cut out a square of ByAnnie’s Soft and Stable, and drew the stitching lines on the fabric. I wanted to add these stitching line for two reasons: 1) to attach the batting to the fabric before sewing the corner seams and 2) the Soft and Stable bends easily where it is stitched.

Once I had stitched the outside lines, I cut out the corners of the batting.

I then stitched on the bottom lines that I had drawn, sewed the side seams, added the handles and lining and had the finished product.

I used the corner squares that I had removed from the larger square to make the eyeglasses pocket. I decided to add some quilting detail to this project and drew diagonal stitching lines.

I added another heart applique and binding to create the eyeglasses pocket, and hung the items in place on El’s bed.

To be continued…please come back tomorrow to see how Em’s turned out and to let me know which one you like better!