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Tuesday 22 January 2013

hauck alpha high chair cover

I know its not exactly a tute, but shh. (and there is a link to a "how to") When I entered the world of blogging I was searching for this! A pattern or a tutorial to make a cover or seat padding for my highchairs. You know that inevitable and cute moment your baby falls asleep in the highchair and you just absolutely have to take photos before carefully trying to take them out to out them somewhere more comfortable and safe, without waking them? This was it, I ran (tippy toed quietly) to get my camera! Haha, unsure why I tried to be quiet, I had been using the blender to make baby food while he was happily watching... Until he crashed out. So really if he could fall asleep while I used the noisiest machine in the house, then he couldn't possibly wake to anything! So anyway after taking a couple of happy snaps....
(insert cute pic of sleeping baby in highchair) 














.... and taking him to his cot to further rest up I got back to tossing fruits and veges in the blender and got to thinking... How uncomfortable that chair must be, we got it for function, easily cleaned, grows with them etc, not for looks or really even for comfort, but why not? Especially when the boys seemed to like being in them to watch us on our level, even when not being fed! So with that I finished up preparing food and packing the freezer and got online searching, a couple days on and off searching turned up nothing appropriate to suit our highchair, there was originally a company that did make them to fit but I couldn't find them anywhere anymore so I had to try something myself. That's motivating enough. But what I did find was this with a basic run down about making your own high chair pattern SO I got out a roll of wrapping paper and cut it roughly to size of the chair back and seat, placed it in the seat and marked where the edges were and also where the centre belt was, I folded it in half to make sure it was symetrical and cut it out to fit the marks and tried it again to be sure! Success! I grabbed my wrapping paper pattern and went to work! I used polyester wadding and fabric on either side, I ran a couple of lines diagonally through to quilt the layers together, made my first button holes in each for the seatbelts and then added bias trim, it was my first attempt at using bias and I had no idea what to do with it haha. Wearing my Learners license I just folded it over both edges and ran the sewing machine around it, wow how silly was I! It worked but I felt very silly when I found Dana from danamadeit; she shows the RIGHT way to do it! (she is wonderful isn't she, makes everything so easy to understand) I machine sewed (is that right?) lengths of bias to use as ties on both front and back, long enough to tie around seat and around the back. I used just cotton so I could machine wash, I had put laminate aside to make another set with but decided against it, machine washable was better for us as you can probably imagine.
 

 The first one I made was the 2 pieces and the second was one piece, I think the second worked better. If I did it again I would use sew on Velcro for top and bottom and stick on Velcro in the same size  for the chair to anchor it better, with the ties it did move a bit when putting them in and out. We stopped using our covers only a couple months ago because we started having to fuss with seatbelt a instead, thanks to Mr Roo becoming a climber!
Now just to update you on my research, I did find that target sells the seat padding (in america) and also a few other companies that have websites in different languages. So if you are in one of places that do have them -good for you! if not, good luck. the above link to the how to is shown on a different highchair but the concept is the same, if you have trouble getting the right pattern pieces to fit let me know and I (may) be able to try scanning mine.

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