Easy Baby Teether!

So just recently Annabelle has been a little on he grizzly side and since her friend Jospeh (who is only one month older) cut his first tooth around her age I was beginning to wonder if the dreaded toothy pegs would be cutting through! She seems to like sucking on my cardi and other fabric things so I wanted something that was fabric and hard so it would be good to teeth on and this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy making it, it only took me about 20minutes.

For the photo tutorial click "read more"

You will need:

5 wooden beads (20mm)

A strip of fabric 75cm long and 8 cm wide

Matching thread

IMPORTANT:
if you use bigger beads your fabric strip will need to be wider to accommodate the greater girth of the bead. this tutorial is for 20mm beads specifically.

First you will need to cut out your fabric. A strip that measures 8cm by 75cm. Also you will need the wooden beads, I chose to use un treated wooden beads made of beech and measure 20mm, but you could do them bigger. this size seems to fit well in Annabelles mouth at the moment. 

To make the tube that you will  put the beads into, you need to fold the fabric over longsides together, and sew the top shut, then sew all the way down the long side. Leave 1cm seam allowance from the edge of the fabric. 

This is how the end of the tube should be closed at one end only, and shows the seam allowance at the side.

Next to turn the tube of fabric inside out, I used a wooden spoon but you could use any long stick. Push the sewn end onto the wooden spoon and keep pushing the fabric onto the spoon.

The fabric will bunch up, but you should be able to see the tube turning the right way out.

Ease the fabric off the spoon until it is the right way out. Then sort out the end making sure to get the corners out nice and square.

Next you need to measure 10cm from the closed end of the tube, you will then insert the first bead so that the top of the bead sits 10cm away from the end.( roughly where my finger is)

Now you can tie your first knot, being careful not to change the position of the bead. Pull the fabric nice and tight so you get a dense knot.

Keep putting the beads into the tube and tying after each one as close to the bead as you can. Don't tie a knot after the last bead.

Now you can close up the other end of the tube by folding the fabric in on shelf back into the tube, then top stitch it shut.  

Finally do a tight double knot to finish the bracelet.

Here are the two I have made, you could knot before the first bead and after the last one if you wanted,  but I liked the consistency of knot bead knot bead etc.

Hope that makes sense, any questions, comments below. 

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Happy Making!

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