Book Sling

The rooms in our house aren't as spacious as I sometimes wish the were so there's a need for creative uses of space. My son was going to need a place for his books and I wasn't seeing a lot of room for your standard options.

We just keep the books in my daughters room on top of her closet.

With the top and inside of his closet spoken for early on I was going to need to get creative.

I'd seen book slings on Pinterest and with a bare spot on one of his walls beckoning to me I felt the solution to my problem-to-be was obvious.

Because I had a woodland/farm type theme in his room I really wanted to keep to that. I found a gnome fabric I loved but at $38 before shipping for 2 yards I just couldn't swing it.

I stumbled upon this fabric at Outback Toys and it seemed perfect . . . until I kept searching the site and saw this

a brown haired boy like my brown haired boy? Yes please!

I ordered 2 yards but they only had one and were no longer going to be carrying that fabric. I ended up with the original fabric I'd found and liked on the site. That's the kind of "lose" I can handle.

During the first two weeks of my recovery from my C-section I had helpers staying with me. So during week two I went to Lowes with my husband to buy the hardware I would need to make this.

We had to ask where we could find the dowels.

I didn't see any dowels that I thought were thick or long enough so having seen pins where people used curtain rods we went to that aisle.

To make the sling I folded the fabric with the right sides together and sewed along the long side that wasn't connected. Then I sewed the entire way along one of short sides and a portion of the way of the remaining  short side making sure to leave a hole large enough for me to pull everything through.

Once you've pulled the entire piece through the hole and have the right side now on the outside, fold over the little bit that isn't yet sewn and top stitch all the way around.

Now you're ready to add the "pockets" to fit the curtain rods into. I took the curtain rod and folded over a piece of the fabric large enough to leave just a bit of extra space. Sew this into place all the way down one long side.

Set  this all aside for a moment.

Unwrap the curtain rods - ours had shrunk wrapped plastic on them.

Fix the curtain brackets onto the wall.

Slip your sling onto the curtain rods.

Place your curtain rods into the double brackets you've mounted onto the wall.

Et voila - you have yourself a hanging bookshelf and the same amount of floor space you had before. Or, you will - right now we don't because we're having bracket issues. The rods won't/aren't fitting the brackets we bought for them.

Now where is that receipt? . . . .