Don’t be selfish . . .
I have seen these on pinterest and for sale on Etsy. I am awful at following tutorials but I at least read through this one first. http://onesassyhousewife.blogspot.com/2012/07/swingin.html (She has a lot more pictures of the process then I have and did a lot more work and spent more) Then I improvised and made my swing in under 2 hours. I would have been faster except I kept stopping to play with Elora. 🙂
Okay, lets get started!
- First you need to get a yard of canvas material, or other strong fabric of your choice.
- Next, get large dowels from your local lumber store. Or, if your as CHEEP as me, then go to a ReStore or other used building materials type store and buy some stair railings for $0.50 that you can use on many projects to come.
- Have a drill
- Rope
- Sewing Machine
- And a tree or other strong secure place to hang it in.
Cut the material into 3 pieces.
- About 4 feet long and at about 1.5 feet wide.
- About 1.5 feet long and about 6 inches wide.
- about 1.5 feet long and about 1.5 feet wide.
I am sorry that I didn’t measure as I cut. I have a very photogenic way of doing things. I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted Elora to fit in it and how it would fit a future baby and I just eyeballed and cut.
Now you need to sew the seams and then sew the pieces together so they look like this. (I doubled them back in many places) The crotch section I created two different slots for the dowel to go in so that I could change it for a baby so the face wouldn’t be at the bar part. (you can see that this canvas had been a drop cloth for my art)
Now drill holes into the dowels at each end by first marking the spot and making sure they will line up over eachother. Choose a drill bit that is large enough for the rope to fit through but small enough that your dowels keep their strength.
Now just slip the dowels through the canvas and the rope through the dowels. Tie the rope together meeting in a point at the top, if you want the swing to be able to spin without the rope twisting and untwisting. I then used a carabiner to clip it on so that I can take it down easy to adjust for baby or toddler.
Now you have a baby swing!
WARNING! child may love it so much that you find yourself pushing them for an hour at a time. Notice the wicker chair in the background? I sit there and read or work on this blog while she swings within reach and I keep it going.
I was on a roll and decided to make two more swings for our “tree set” I made a trapeze and classic wooden. (the wooden one is about to be replace with a wider wooden one for stability reasons.)
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Don’t be selfish . . .