A fun little gift for a 1-year-old

 Our youngest grandson turned one year old in June, and -- although I really wanted to make something handmade for him -- I was at a loss as to what that might be.  Then I saw an idea on Pinterest for alphabet letters made of fabric.  Now this might be something he could play with, and I could see his siblings getting involved by spelling out names or words on the floor for him.

  I looked at the tutorial and decided to make it easier.  Here's how I did it.  First, I did a search for large alphabet letter templates.  I found some great ones on DTLK's Educational Activities for Kids, just the size I was hoping for.  They printed out two to a sheet of paper.  I printed enough letters so I had not only the ABCs, but also enough extra letters so that every child's name (he has four older siblings) could be spelled out on the floor at once.  Somehow I could just envision that happening!

Then I cut out enough fabric squares to have 2 for each letter.  I had lots of small colorful scraps in my stash that were just perfect for this.  Using dressmaker's carbon paper, I traced letters on half of the squares.  Then I cut a same-size cotton batting square for each letter. 

I sandwiched them together like this: plain fabric square, right-side down; batting square; fabric square with traced letter, right-side up.  I pinned them securely, then carefully machine-stitched around the outline of each letter.  Once the letters were all stitched, then I cut out each one with pinking shears, using embroidery scissors as necessary for some of the small cut-out parts of letters. 


 
 
Voila!  A multitude of fabric alphabet letters for a little boy and his older siblings to play with!  The letters could be packaged in a zip-top plastic bag, a plastic box, or whatever other storage you might find suitable.  Hope someone else can use this idea.  My grandkids loved it!