My attempts at creativity...

Joshua... So now that he's figured out that it's really easy to roll over, and now that he can pull himself up we were starting to have a really tough time at night. Even in his sleep if he started to roll over he'd end up with his feet pulled up under himself in a crawling position. This would then wake him up and then he'd pull himself up on the side of the cot and his dummy would inevitably end up on the floor and then he can't sit down again, and so we get woken up...

While we were on leave over Christmas we had bought a cot bumper, but it didn't have a cover. I bought fabric to cover it, but then ran out of energy (it took a while to find the fabric... I really had to search to find something that would work) So the uncovered bumper was sitting in Joshua's room, and because of the lack of cover if we put it in the cot he just pulled it all over himself, so it wasn't effective, and possibly a bit dangerous.

And then we realised that possibly if we could put the bumper in it would stop him from pulling on the side of the cot and rolling over in his sleep, and also if he did then manage to get up he wouldn't hurt himself so easily if he fell back, so we wouldn't feel pressured to rush out of bed to him. So that very night I decided that I must now cover this thing...

We don't have our own sewing machine, so I went over the road and used Cindy's. I managed to do it in a little over two hours (although I must admit that my dad helped me with the cutting a bit) But what I'm most proud of myself about is that I didn't have a pattern, so it was my design, and plan and pattern and everything.

So here's how it turned out:
The colours, and the gingham match Joshua's curtains really well... And I put 8 ribbons in so that it can be tied to the cot in every available place! My boy is very active!

How to do the open end was a particular challenge for me (and while I was making my final decision I was getting input from Uncle Ron! How many girls can say that their dad and uncle were helping them with a sewing project!) In the end I did it like a pillow case kind of thing. With not being flat it wasn't completely straight forward, and the material was also a bit short, but I used the entire length that I had, so I couldn't really have done anything more. I might still put pres studs on or something, but it's very workable right now.

So I must admit I'm very proud of myself!