Lined Baby Sling

This is a free online tutorial on how to make a lined sling like this one

First things first, gather your materials.

You will need at least 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 yards of fabric for the main body of the sling. Don’t choose anything too heavy but also not too lightweight. You want to be sure it has some strength to it. If you want to line the sling you’ll need another 1 1/2 yds. of fabric. The satin brocade featured in the sling above was purchased at JoAnn Fabrics.

The rings: I use nylon rings from Sling Rings.com but you can find them elsewhere online too. The size I used for my sling was medium (2 5/8″ in diameter .4″ thick).

Once you have chosen your fabric be sure and wash it. Trust me you don’t want to skip this step. A sling will most likely need to get washed and you don’t want it to shrink AFTER you have made it. Wash and dry the fabric just like you will the sling. Once you have washed your fabric you may want to iron it. Be sure to use a press cloth or iron on the underside of the brocade.

I’m using a maroon poly silky (lightweight but strong) for the main body of the sling and a pale pink satin brocade for the lining.

Next, decide on how wide you want your sling to be. I prefer 30 inches but you can certainly go larger or smaller (for safety’s sake, I do not recommend going smaller than 25 inches wide).

You can use the selvages of the fabric if you’d like but I prefer not to, especially for a lined sling because the selvage edge can pull and distort things.

To get a clean cut I fold the fabric over and use a rotary cutter. Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be perfectly straight but do try to cut it on grain as it will give you a smoother fit when you cinch up the sling later.

Press under the edges of the lining that will go across the sling.

Next, decide where you want the lining to start. I placed mine 20 inches from the top of the side where the rings will be. Place the lining on top of the main fabric with the right side together.

Pin it in place to keep it from shifting and sew up the long sides, catching the lining to the main fabric, then finish the raw edges. Here you can see I serged the edges. If you don’t have a serger a zig-zag will work fine or even just pinking.

Next, turn the entire thing inside out so that the lining is on the outside.

Gently turn and press the seams and stitch again down the long sides so that when you are finished it looks like this:

Next, stitch the lining into place at both ends across the sling. I used pink thread on top and maroon thread in the bobbin for a nice match.

Also remember to finish the top edges of the main fabric. I just turned and stitched mine.

OK time to add the rings.

There are a myriad of ways to make this fold. I go for simple and uncomplicated.
Fold both sides to the center:

Fold to the center again:

And one more time:

Add the rings and fold over:

Pin and stitch in place.

For safety I do a crisscross pattern stitching.

Here’s what it will look like now:

Thread the loose end through the rings and your sling is done!

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