How to Make Your Own Shopping Cart Chair Harness for a Baby
A shopping cart chair harness can help protect your baby from falls and germs at the store. A cloth child-safety harness is more or less a pillowcase with leg cutouts and strong straps that you attach to the cart. Making a harness is an inexpensive way to help keep your children safe.
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Things You'll Need
- Sewing machine
- Thread
- Cloth (2 to 3 yards)
- Wide Velcro (2 to 3 feet)
- Pre-made polyester, five-point harness (optional)
Instructions
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Choose the right cloth to make your shopping cart chair harness. It needs to be durable, strong and washable but also provide good cushioning for your baby. Bright, busy, child-friendly patterns will keep your baby interested. The ideal cloth will be strong like denim or microfiber, have a soft surface and be quilted to provide a little comfort.
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Choose the strap fitting for the child-safety harness. You can buy a pre-made five-point harness in many craft stores. These have two shoulder straps, two waist straps and one strap between the legs, all connected at the abdomen. If you prefer to make your own, fasten the shoulder straps to the waist straps with loops and use strong plastic fasteners or Velcro for the other three straps. The simplest strap system uses loops for the shoulder connections, a loop for the between-the-legs strap connection and a generous amount of Velcro for the waist strap. By threading the waist strap through the three loops and fastening it, you have a quick, secure, adjustable fastening.
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3
Size the shopping cart cover. Take an old pillowcase to the store, insert the pocket end of the pillowcase in the cart seat and then fold it over, adjusting until you like the fit. Mark all of the points you'll need for your pattern, including the strap holes, leg holes and locations of the ties or Velcro to attach the harness to the cart. In general, your shopping cart cover should fit over cart chairs that are 3 feet wide by 1 foot deep. If you use carts at warehouse clubs or other places with nonstandard shopping carts, you'll need to customize the fit.
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Cut the cloth to fit the shopping cart seat. Run elastic through the wide opening that will fold down over the cart seat and handle, so it will hold securely. Stitch Velcro straps or ties to each top corner; these will secure it to the cart. Leave buttonhole-style openings to thread the straps through. Make your shopping cart chair harness so that you can attach the straps directly to the cart.
Make the leg holes about 12 inches from the buttonhole openings. The leg holes should be about 4 inches in diameter and about 4 inches apart. For a softer finish on the edges of the holes, baste, then trim with a felted fleece, holding it in place with a seam.
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Add any additional options you may need on the child-safety harness. These may include pockets or short straps to secure toys or other small objects. Think about the things you'd like to have handy when shopping with your child, such as pacifiers, bottles, small toys and your wallet.
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Make sure the stitching is secure. When you are finished making the shopping cart cover, wash it and then test every seam again, reinforcing where necessary and snipping off any excess threads.
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Tips & Warnings
If you don't want to add the straps yourself, you can make large buttonhole openings at the base of the seat and run the cart's provided infant safety straps through them to fasten your child in.
