How to make a baby carrying sling

The carrier I made for Kit is similar to the Moby sling, which costs around £40. Because I am stingy and a dab hand with a sewing machine (one seam) I offered a homemade version.

If you want to make one yourself it’s quite a simple business. You take 3m of cotton jersey and cut it into thirds of around 20cms deep along its length. Take two of the 3m pieces and seam them securely along the short ends of the rectangle  to produce a 20cm x 6m piece of cloth. I tried to do a diagram with Illustrator which I am learning at the moment, but resorted to a felt tip and piece of paper. Sorry.

I then roughly dyed this long slim piece of fabric in some blue dye to make a kind of tie-dye effect (ie I chucked it in a bucket of dye).

The edges are tapered towards the ends of the sling, so that it can be tied securely around the body. The edges are not finished and do not need to be. The whole thing is very soft and nice to wear and is suitable for very small babies. There are all sorts of different ways of tying it on, which can be found on the internet.

The square of cloth in the middle was a piece of white cotton onto which I printed my “small flints” design. I then coloured in the white sections using watered down fabric paints in greens, yellows, turquoise, and blue. If you buy a ready made sling this is where they put their logo so you walk around advertising their company everyday. On this version I put attatched this small piece of self printed fabric over the flat felled seams. This adds reassuring strength, and indicates the centre, that covers Baby’s back.  I made up a little bag with the cut off corners  and attached another piece of home printed fabric on it. I inserted elastic into the top so that the sling can be folded away when not in use as it is an ungainly item.