• New? Start Here!
  • About
    • About Me
    • Contact
    • Contribute
  • Work With Me
  • Roundup Friendly Blogs
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Practically Functional

Do it yourself!

  • Cricut
  • Cleaning
  • Home & Garden
  • Crafts
  • Recipes
  • Seasonal
  • Blog
  • The Shop!
Home > Baby > Make Your Own Soft Baby Blocks

Make Your Own Soft Baby Blocks


January 16, 2019 by Jessi Wohlwend 3 Comments

This post was last updated on April 30, 2019

694shares
  • Pinterest660
  • Facebook34
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • Print
Make your own soft baby blocks with a cricut maker pin2

Make your own soft baby blocks in under an hour with a Cricut Maker! Quick and easy to make, and a great gift for any new mom!


Earlier this week I shared a post on how to cut fabric with a Cricut Maker, and I used my Maker to cut squares out of some pretty floral fabrics. Today I’m going to show you what I made with those squares: adorable homemade soft baby blocks for our baby girl!

Make your own soft baby blocks with a cricut maker

Pin this post!

I really love using my Cricut Maker to cut fabric! The rotary blade is seriously amazing, cutting as it rolls just like a standard handheld rotary cutter, except it’s way smaller and machine-controlled, so it’s way more precise. It can turn within a quarter of an inch to cut through hundreds of different fabrics, which allows you to cut intricate shapes and patterns with accuracy that you can’t get with scissors.

It can even cut multiple layers at the same time, which is great if you’re making multiples of the same pattern, or if you want to fold your fabric and cut it out on the fold.

All you have to do is choose from hundreds of sewing patterns in the Cricut library (including Simplicity patterns and Riley Blake Designs patterns), then flawlessly mark your fabric and cut it with your Cricut Maker. And you get to do the fun part: sewing!

How To Make Your Own Soft Baby Blocks With A Cricut Maker

This is the pattern in Design Space that I used for this project. It makes four soft baby blocks with letters and numbers on each side of the cubes.

  • Time spent doing stuff: 45 minutes
  • Time spent waiting around: 10 minutes
  • Total project time: 55 minutes

Equipment

  • Cricut Maker + the rotary blade that comes with it
  • FabricGrip mat
  • washable fabric pen for the Cricut Maker
  • Cricut EasyPress2 and EasyPress mat
  • weeding tool
  • sewing machine

Materials

  • six 12″x12″ pieces of fabric in coordinating colors (I used all 5 of the fabrics in the Sweet Prairie sampler plus one piece out of the Love Story sampler)
  • white iron-on vinyl
  • thread
  • batting

Instructions

Start by opening up the project in Design Space. Click the green Make It button to send the pattern to your machine.

Cricut design space project for making soft baby blocks

On the Prepare Mats screen, make sure that the mat containing the letters and numbers is mirrored (toggle the “Mirror” switch on) because you will be cutting that mat out of iron-on, and iron-on always needs to be mirrored before cutting. All the other mats are fabric, which normally also need to be mirrored, but since the cuts are perfectly square in this pattern, it is fine to leave the Mirror switch turned off for the fabric mats.

Once the mats are ready, click the green Continue button to send the pattern to your machine. Make sure the material is set to “iron-on” for the mat with letters and numbers, and set to “cotton” for all the other mats. Then Design Space will walk you through the cutting part, just follow the on-screen instructions.

You’ll want to switch to the rotary blade and add the washable fabric pen in the accessory clamp before cutting the fabric mats. You can see more details about how to cut fabric with a Cricut Maker in this post.

How to cut fabric on a cricut maker

Once the fabric and iron-on is all cut, weed away the background iron-on vinyl (leaving the letters and numbers on the plastic backing) and then cut apart all of the different letters, numbers, and shapes.

For applying iron-on to cotton fabric, set your EasyPress 2 to 315 degrees. Once it’s heated, pre-heat the fabric for five seconds. Then position the letters and numbers on the fabric squares and press with the EasyPress 2 for 30 seconds.

Use a cricut easypress 2 to stick letters and numbers on your soft baby blocks

Flip the fabric over and press again from the back for 15 seconds, then peel away the plastic backing from the vinyl while it’s still warm to the touch. Once all of your fabric squares have a letter, number, or shape on them, you’re ready to start sewing!

Sew the squares into a cross shape with one arm that has two squares instead of just one. This is the basic starting shape for each block.

Sew into a cube to make soft baby blocks

Then fold the center block in half diagonally (in the photo above, fold the “C” block diagonally), right sides together, so that block “1” is on top of block “3” and block “2” is on top of block “B”. Make 2 side seams of your cube by stitching along the edges of block 1+3 and 2+B (bottom edge of 3 lines up with right edge of 1; left edge of B lines up with top edge of 2).

Open up the fabric and fold block C in half diagonally again, the opposite way, and sew up the other 2 side seams. (This time the left edge of block 1 lines up with the bottom edge of block 2, and the right edge of block B lines up with the top edge of block 3.)

Once that is sewn you should have an open box with a floppy “lid” (block “A” in the photo above). Attach the lid to the box by sewing two edges of the lid to two sides of the box, leaving the third seam open. Turn the box inside out through the open seam, then stuff it full of batting.

When it’s as full as you want it, whipstitch or ladder stitch the opening closed by hand.

Sew soft baby blocks closed with a ladder stitch

Repeat for the other three blocks and you’re done!

Give them to your baby and let her enjoy! Or wrap them up as a gift for a new mom in your life.

Use a cricut maker to make soft baby blocks
How to make baby soft cubes with a cricut maker

Want to share this project with your friends? Just click any of the share buttons at the top of the screen to share with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.!

Tools & Supplies I Recommend

  • Cricut maker
    Cricut Maker
  • FabricGrip Machine Mat, 12" x 12"
    FabricGrip Machine Mat, 12″ x 12″
  • Washable Fabric Pen from Cricut
    Washable Fabric Pen
  • Cricut EasyPress
    Cricut EasyPress 2
  • Cricut Easypress Mat
    Cricut Easypress Mat
  • Cricut Weeder Tool
  • Sewing Machine
  • Designer fabric sampler sweet prairie
    Sweet Prairie Fabric Sampler
  • Designer fabric sampler love story
    Love Story Fabric Sampler
  • 2004678 everyday iron on black 1 1
    Everyday Iron-On Vinyl
1

Disclosure: I received compensation from Cricut in exchange for my participation in this campaign, and my honest discussion of their products. But the Cricut Maker and, really, all Cricut products are seriously amazing and all opinions in this post are 100% my own. I would never write a post about something I didn’t think was useful or interesting for you guys, and Practically Functional will only publish sponsored posts for companies or products I love and believe in! 🙂

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Jessi Wohlwend

Owner & Blogger at Practically Functional
Hi, I'm Jessi! Welcome to Practically Functional, a DIY and crafts blog for everyone! I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. Whether you're looking for simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, or just practical organization solutions, you'll find them here! Make sure to sign up for the email newsletter to get craft projects, Cricut tutorials, and cleaning tips in your inbox every week (for free!)
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Latest posts by Jessi Wohlwend (see all)

  • Keep Kids Clothes Organized With These Cute Dresser Drawer Labels [Free Printable + SVG] - December 6, 2019
  • Personalized Gifts With Cricut: 25 Cricut Ideas To Make Sure You Win Christmas This Year! - November 27, 2019
  • Personalized Grandparent Pillows With A Cricut Maker - November 6, 2019
  • 5 Reasons I Love My Cricut Maker - October 23, 2019
  • How To Clean A Microwave With Vinegar & Steam - October 18, 2019

Filed Under: Baby, Crafts, Cricut, Cricut Projects Tagged With: Cricut EasyPress, Cricut Maker, Rotary Blade, Sewing

« How To Cut Fabric With A Cricut Maker
How To Make A Pillow Box With A Cricut Maker »

Comments

  1. Laura Adema says

    March 4, 2019 at 9:24 pm

    Can you use a regular iron to press the letters and numbers onto the fabric?

    Reply
    • Jessi Wohlwend says

      June 2, 2019 at 11:24 pm

      Yep you can! Just be sure to press down really hard and put a folded up towel underneath the fabric to give it a firm base to press against.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. How To Cut Fabric With A Cricut Maker says:
    January 18, 2019 at 11:21 am

    […] « Create An English Cottage Garden In Your Backyard!Make Your Own Soft Baby Blocks » […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hi, I'm Jessi! Welcome to Practically Functional, a DIY and crafts blog for everyone! I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience.

Whether you're looking for simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, or just practical organization solutions, you'll find them here! Read More…

Love what you’re reading?

Help a tired author out! All donations go straight to buying enough coffee to keep this site running 24/7!

Copyright © 2019 · Practically Functional ·

Copyright © 2019 · Foodie Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

close
close

CRICUT NEWBIE?


You need the

ULTIMATE GETTING STARTED GUIDE FOR CRICUT BEGINNERS!

This FREE 5-day email course has all the info you need to get started making awesome things with your Cricut right away!


It answers all of these questions, and more!

  • What is a Cricut and what can it do?
  • What else do I need to get started?
  • How do I use my own images?
  • What are some good beginner project ideas?
How to use a cricut machine

This FREE 5-day email course has all the info you need to get started making awesome things with your Cricut right away!


It answers all of these questions, and more!

  • What is a Cricut and what can it do?
  • What else do I need to get started?
  • How do I use my own images?
  • What are some good beginner project ideas?

GET YOUR FREE GUIDE!

I hate spam as much as you do; I promise to keep your email address safe. I'll only use your email to send you this free email course and weekly updates from Practically Functional. Unsubscribe at any time if you change your mind.

x
close
close

CRICUT NEWBIE?


You need the

ULTIMATE GETTING STARTED GUIDE FOR CRICUT BEGINNERS!

This FREE 5-day email course has all the info you need to get started making awesome things with your Cricut right away!


It answers all of these questions, and more!

  • What is a Cricut and what can it do?
  • What else do I need to get started?
  • How do I use my own images?
  • What are some good beginner project ideas?
How to use a cricut machine

This FREE 5-day email course has all the info you need to get started making awesome things with your Cricut right away!


It answers all of these questions, and more!

  • What is a Cricut and what can it do?
  • What else do I need to get started?
  • How do I use my own images?
  • What are some good beginner project ideas?

YOU'RE IN!

I’m so glad you decided to join us and be part of the FREE Ultimate Getting Started Guide For Cricut Beginners email course! Check your email inbox for your first email from me in the next few minutes.

If you don’t see it, double check your Spam folder, and then make sure you add [email protected] to your Contacts list so your email service knows to let my emails through!

Back to the site
x