Make it at home: Booster seat

When my daughter became too old for a high chair, but still too short to comfortably sit at the table, I decided to make a booster seat for her. Technically, our strap-on high chair could be a booster seat (and it was for a long, long time), but it became dangerous when she started climbing in and out of it as she grew heavier.

Temporarily, we solved this problem by having her sit on a phone book or two. This wasn't the best, though, because the phone books slipped and tore. I was talking to a good friend one night, and she mentioned that she had a pattern for a phone book cover. Hmmm....phone book cover. I can do that!

(This is a picture of the bottom. The top is just the green fabric.)

One rainy night I found some leftover fabric from my curtains and started sewing. I wish I had step-by-step pictures, but I wasn't writing this blog at the time! I'll try to do basic sewing steps:

1. Pretend like you're going to wrap a package to measure your fabric: put two same-size phone books on top of each other in one-half of the fabric. Cut the length of the fabric so that it will fold over the books and allow a 3/4 inch seam. Then, for the width of the fabric, make sure the fabric can go up the sides of the phonebooks at least 3/4 of the height of the books, adding 3/4 inch seams. (Feel free to over-cut your fabric size because once you sew the case, you can always trim down your seams.)

2. Sew a pillow case. Fold the cut fabric in half, inside-out. With your machine, sew three of the four sides leaving 3/4 inch seams.

3. Turn the fabric right-side-out, and slide in the phone books. Make sure that it is a very snug fit. If it's not, simply sew inside your seams to make it a little bit tighter. Do this in small increments, and test it until it's snug.

4. Before taking out the books, pin on some anti-slip rug stuff (yes, that's a technical term). I used two strips. See them??

5. Take the books out and sew on the anti-slip strips by hand or by machine.

6. Put the books back into the case. Pull the fabric very taught and pin it. Then hand-sew the case shut.

7. Relax. Your child will make the cover dirty and the books will slip a little inside the case until they settle into their permanent positions. Originally, my booster seat was rectangular; now it kind of looks like an ellipse. Due to the anti-slip strips you put on, the booster seat stays in place perfectly on your chairs. I recommend you make two so that there's an extra one for a friend visiting!

I loved this solution to the booster seat since it used materials I already had in the house: left-over fabric, extra-anti-slip; phone books. I feel that I did a good job at reusing and made a great, functional product!