Baby walker seat

Colin loved being placed in the walker before he started walking. He bounced a lot in excitement when he realised he could stand on something called 'legs'. A few weeks later, we removed the walker's base mat for him to run and glide around the house with his legs, which pretty much amused him and sent him into smiles and laughters.

Barely 2 months after getting him the walker, the fabric showed signs of fabric stress. I could see the loosening of fabric weaves near the groin area. A few days later, this was what it became. We had 2 options - (1) purchase another walker or (2) take up the challenge and sew a replacement. I told Boon, "Since we will have to get a new walker, then might as well let me try making one. We can get a new walker if I fail...".

So my challenge began... First, a picture of how the damaged seat looked like.

My plan was to do reverse engineering. Before I started taking it apart, I took many pictures of the seat. Front view, back view, inner view, side views,  bottom view. As many as I could so it is easy to see how it looked like before being disassembled. 

Then I started unpicking slowly.. and taking pictures as I went along.

Then I laid my 'pattern blocks' onto the new fabric (Michael Miller's) and batting, leaving 1.5cm seam allowance, and cut both fabric and batting together, then got started sew happy!

I could only sew after Colin goes to bed, with a bed light lamp and machine's light. This is the final product 2 weeks later. :) Much prettier and more durable than the previous seat. The only thing I reused was the light blue trim.

Inner view. Not the best sew lines... Reinforced the sides to prevent snapping of thread.

Top view. Noticed how I painstakingly matched the circles? Am happy with the result. :))

The greatest challenge was sewing the trims when it got to the top. I had to exert a lot of energy to compress the foam so that it could go under the needles. Glad it all worked out without any needle breaking incident.

A great experience!