How To Make A Fitted Sheet

This particular sheet is for a Pack n Play for Baby Gogo, but the same techniques apply to other size mattresses as well.  You can make Pack n Play and crib sheets from regular cotton woven fabrics.  You can make twin size sheets from specialty 60" wide prints and flannels.  I have even made queen sized sheets by ordering the super wide flannels from Fabric.com and dyeing them myself.

I chose an ocean themed print from my stash for this project.  

After spreading the fabric out on the bed, I laid the mattress on top.  Obviously, this is easier with little mattresses than with queen sized ones.  Measuring works, too, but I'm more a guesstimate kind of gal.  

At the corners, make a square cutout.  

Pack & Play mattresses are pretty flat.  But if you're doing a crib mattress or larger, you want the size of your square to be the "drop" measurement plus a little extra that will be under the mattress when the sheet is on.  The drop is the depth of the mattress.  So if your twin mattress has an 8" drop, you could do 10-12" squares at the corners.  Mine were much smaller for this project.  

Probably the trickiest part to explain.  Those cutouts you just made?  Sew them together, right sides facing.  

After doing all 4 sides, you should have something that looks like this.  

Now you're going to go all the way around with your 1/4" elastic.  Alternately, you can use fold over elastic if you want.  I've done that on some, and it looks nice when finished.  But no one sees it, so it's up to you.  Stretch the elastic while sewing, and your sheet will stay on nice and tight.

If you're doing a large sheet, and you want to pinch pennies, you can just do elastic at the corners (starting about a foot before and continuing about a foot after the seam) and that works, too.  

Voila!

I put the sheet on and flipped the mattress over so you could see what it looks like from the bottom.  

And here's what it looks like in the Pack and Play.  

This is a bug sheet that I made recently that is crib sized. 

I used the corners that I cut out to make washies.  The back side is yellow baby terry.  These are good for messy hands and faces, or as diaper wipes with cloth diapers.

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