26 Jun 2011

Booster Seat Cushion

Alex is starting into the world of solid food so we really need to move Chloe out of the highchair. At the moment she is using it pushed up to the table which is the perfect height. My idea was to make a cushion that will strap to a chair to boost her up to the table so she can be a 'big girl'.
I went to Para Rubber and got a couple of squares cut out of furniture grade foam so it is nice and firm (they cut to your measurements which is fantastic). These ones are 35cm x 35cm x 10cm.


I cut up my material:
top and bottom - 15 1/4" x 15 1/4"
sides - 2 pieces 5 1/4" x 12 1/4"
- 1 piece 5 1/4" x 15 1/4"
- 2 pieces 4" x 22"
1 x 20" (51cm) zip
2 x D-Ring sets
2 pieces of webbing at 1 metre and 1.5metre long

(5/8" seam allowance on all seams unless otherwise stated.)
I sewed my zip in the middle of the 2 long side pieces and then cut the resulting in a long piece that could zip in half. I then trimmed the long sides so that the piece was 5 1/4" wide, but I left it 22" long. To this I sewed the 2 smaller side pieces with a 1" seam allowance resulting in a long piece that wrapped around 3 sides of the foam.


The back piece was going to have a strap attached to it. I took the 1m piece of webbing and added the D-rings to one end. I then laid it through the middle of the last side piece lengthwise. I offset it a bit so that more hung off one end than the other as I wanted the end with the D-rings to sit in about the middle of the chair back. I folded the material back the width of the seam allowance before sewing back and forth on both ends, and then sewed a square in the middle to hold it in place. I wanted it to go completely around the chair rather than just sew it onto the edges of the cushion for extra strength. The tricky bit was getting the strap to come through to the front. By sewing over the seam allowance I was able to cut the seam allowance either side of the webbing to create a hole in the seam. I then sewed up either side of the seam up to the webbing. (I think the pictures explain that better)


edit for this part: I have done this a different way. Check out this post for an easier way to sew the strap at the seams.




It fits around the cushion - YAY!

Repeat the process to add the longer strap piece on one of the squares for the bottom strap.

Then came the tricky part which involved pinning the top and bottom to the edges and sewing around. (Don't forget to open the zip a bit before sewing on the top piece fully). I'm sure there must be an easy way to do the corners but I couldn't work it out. It didn't turn out too bad in the end.

All that's left is to turn in the right way and stuff the cushion in.

And this is the cushion on the chair. I made the straps longer to fit around different chairs. With both straps it is very firmly on there and it has been working beautifully. I plan to make another for my mothers place as we go there lots.

14 Jun 2011

Face Cloths

I was very excited to find micro-fleece available online through Greenbeans. It arrived really fast and was such a good price. The main reason for my purchase was to make some liners for my new cloth nappies so I got some off-white fleece, but I saw this awesome green as well and just had to get it.

I have turned the green into some face cloths for after meal times. My brother made some for me when Chloe was born and they have been so well used that they are a bit past it now. These ones have the green micro-fleece on one side and flannelette on the other as the fleece doesn't hold water very well (but cleans food off the face wonderfully).

10 Jun 2011

Jacket

I started this quite a while ago and have finally gotten around to finishing it, it's a good thing I made it a couple of sizes bigger. I picked up 2 different lengths of merino from Designer Textiles, one was a bit of a heavier weight so will be nice and warm for winter.
I used Burda pattern #9636. I have to say that this was not the easiest pattern to follow and that it is lucky that I have made a few things using patterns before as there were a couple of times where you just needed to know what they were trying to say. The other good thing is that my machine can sew through quite a few layers as it got pretty thick at the shoulders when sewing the hood and the 2 layers of jacket together.
Quite happy with the result and I hope it will get lots of use. I'd even be happy to pass this on to someone else to use once we are done with it.

Soft Baby Book - take 2

I knew I'd make another soft baby book eventually. This is for a boy in my coffee group to play with on a long car trip....at least that's the plan.

I used most of the same templates as last time though I wanted this one to be a bit more interactive. I swapped the lion for a fluffy sheep and the shapes for a page with ribbons. The truck's tray is a fluffy piece of velcro, the apple has a piece of plastic underneath so it crinkles and the shark has some rick-rack water around it. I also added a loop at the top so it could be hooked on/attached to something to keep it from getting lost. It was whipped up in 2 nights so it's nowhere near perfect but I hope it is useful.

Front page

The ribbons are attached at one end. Fluffy truck :)

Shark and fluffy sheep.

Ball is nothing special. Crinkly apple.

Back page - water is polar-fleece, red sail is satin.