Dolly Sling

As a belated Christmas gift, I promised my five year old a dolly sling.  These are available to purchase from the fabulous Original Stitch, either as a PDF pattern to make your own or as a finished item.

Having time on my hands and a stash of fabric that needs using, I opted for the pattern.
The pattern for this is graded as one of their 'advanced' - 'Needs loving care' but it's not really tricky, you need to take your time with some of the pieces and there are lots of curves!
The hardest decision is what fabrics to use and what to use as the batting - as all Original Stitch's products are made with recycled/pre-loved fabrics, their suggestions are old towels, heavy fleece or old ironing board covers, sadly I didn't have anything very dense, just some leftover cotton quilt batting, but it was a bit thin so on the front piece I did add a little iron-on interfacing to give it some rigidity.  My daughter helped pick the fabric, the roses print was from an old dress of hers.

The instructions were comprehensive and include good diagrams, which are better for me! The pattern has just been updated incidentally to simplify a couple of the sewing up stages. I must admit that I didn't do the flat side seams that were in the original pattern, as it seemed too fiddly, so I think it was a good decision to update them. Once I'd cut out all the pieces (and I even got the iron out to press as I went along!) it only took me 2 days to complete (working in baby sleep times!).
I finished this afternoon and was very pleased with myself!  The verdict of the five year old? Well she's tried all her dolls and teddys in it but will she pose for a photo? No!
Surprisingly the seven year old was very interested but the straps are too short for her, so I may be running up another one soon!