Wednesday, September 11, 2013

arm sling


arm sling, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.
My 10-year-old daughter broke her forearm on Monday. She has a splint on now and will get a cast next week. She came home from the ER with one of those plain dark blue arm slings, so we decided to fancy things up a bit. She picked out her fabric and the color of bias tape and webbing she wanted and it definitely shows her taste!

For guidance, I referred to this post at Welcome to My Chaos. It was a pretty easy project. I would add, though, that if you are going to pick a directional patterned fabric like the cupcakes, don't forget to make sure the front side is going the way you want. If you cut the sling on the fold on the bottom, the part of the sling facing the body will have a pattern going the opposite direction. I made sure to keep in mind which side was front as I went along. I cut a 7-inch piece of webbing for the female side of the buckle. Sew one side onto the front fabric of the sling, slide the buckle on, then sew the other end to the other side of the sling. I used the rest of the yard of webbing and sewed it on the elbow side of the sling with reinforced stitching (a big box with an 'X' in it). Figure out how the male side of the buckle goes on the strap so that you can adjust it, then "hem" the end of the strap so that it can't be pulled out of the buckle when being adjusted later. Also remember when you're sewing on the bias tape to sandwich the fabric in it so that the wider edge is on the bottom and will be caught in the stitching. You might already realize all of these things, but I know we've all been on autopilot at some point and not thinking about what we were doing and then had to break out the seam ripper. ;) One of the must-haves for her new sling was something to keep the strap from irritating the skin on her neck. I used some of the leftover cupcake fabric and cut a couple of rectangles that when folded in half would be slightly wider than the webbing. I sandwiched them with a layer of batting in the middle, right sides out, and basted the edges. Using some of the green bias tape, I edged the two shorter sides of the rectangle sandwich. I folded the rectangle in half and stiched. Turn it inside out and slide the resulting tube onto the strap. This not only protects the neck, but it makes a place to tuck in the tail of the adjustable strap as well.

Here is my model!
Arm sling