Travel Chair Sling

Really, I don't know what to call this contraption, other than awesome! Chair converter, travel chair sling or strap??? Any thoughts... Well, this was very high on my "sewing for Barcelona" priority list... and what I did ALL day yesterday, in between playing with and feeding Silas of course.

I had this idea to make a cloth chair strap, so I google it and came up with a bunch of cloth sleeves for chairs like this and this, both of which I like, but thought they may not fit on EVERY chair... Then I found a pattern that I almost bought, but $11 just for the pattern seemed steep, so I looked at the details and came up with an adjustable style of my own, easy to sew of course.

Luckily, I just received this set of Riley Blake My Minds Eye fabrics, which were perfect for this project.

Silas thinks it's really neat to sit in a chair... So this will be fun for him AND useful for us on our vacation.

It adjusts easily to different heights on the chest and chair back. That first photo has the belt up higher on his chest, which is MUCH better than in this photo where it's more down around his waist, but this can work too for a not-so-squirmy-baby, if there is such a thing.

A note about the belt... I was planning on jut sewing it over the front of the seat, so it was all attached, but was unhappy with the alignment on the two halves of the fabric, so this was my solution to "hide" that. I am torn between wanting to make the next one (because there will be more of these) the same way, so that all the pieces come apart for easy washing, or going back to my original plan and sewing the belt to the chair piece... hrmmm, that's up in the air.

So the size is PERFECT for traveling. It rolls up to be stuffed into our backpack (the Deuter Kid Comfort II that we just recently won on Ebay.de). Unroll and slip it over the back of the chair. I used quilt batting in between the two fabrics for the seat which I am really happy with.

The monkey cooperated much better for these photos... I added loops at the back to slide the belt through before tying it around the back of the chair because without them, Silas can turn around and wiggle himself up and out pretty easily.

So, after setting baby down on the chair, run the belt through the loops and around to the back side where there are more loops to choose from for the right sizing... tie and you're good to go... hopefully for a whole meal!

Details... The sizing can also be altered on the back for these belt loops and the velcro keeps it from slipping out AND I sewed on this fabric strip to wrap around the whole thing when you're all done.

I still have ONE more thing to add, a non-slip bottom...

I was going to sew a strip of this fabric straight across the bottom when I was putting the binding on (this was my first attempt at binding, so I know it's not the greatest, but I'm learning), but thought this would go with the fabric better and they are near impossible to sew with the machine because they stick so well, So I have to stitch them on by hand.