Fancy a toy hammock?

"A toy hammock is where toys get their rest after accompanying you the whole night..."

I grew up among mostly girls, and I remember a dear cousin with many soft toys. So I always thought soft toys are a girly thing. Then a male classmate in JC said he liked soft toys. Thanks to that, I didn't find it strange to see how my little boys love their soft toys! But they love them too much - we have too many of them...

They were all over the beds. At one point, the kids threw them everywhere at bedtime so we wasted precious time picking them up before they could settle down to sleep. In the middle of the night, these plushies inevitably got pushed to the floor.

The next morning, my helper would pick them up and place them on the beds. But somehow, she would put one or two on the wrong bed and at bedtime: MAMA! Where is my Ninja turtle?! MAMA! This is not mine!

I needed a storage solution. Was googling and saw toy hammocks - too many to link here; just google it yourself. I was pretty taken with this idea - storage off the floor and bed! But I wasn't about to splurge on these or find some cute cloth to sew.

One fine day mid last year when I was packing stuff at home, I found a stack of bolster covers - they came with our bedsheet sets but we never used them; our one and only big bolster was gone over 10 years ago. I didn't know why I kept them but I was glad I did! They became our toy hammocks!

The first attempt took some three hours over many days coz I’m such a noob at sewing. Still remember that I damaged my mother’s sewing machine back in home economics class.. This time, I stitched all six toy hammocks by hand. Such a nightmare, haha!

So I'm putting together a mini tutorial which can hopefully help you:

• keep soft toys nicely
• make use of otherwise unused bolster covers
• 借前车之鉴 and spend less time on this little project!

PS: This is not a sewing blog so don't focus on the ugly stitches :p

Here we go!

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Going from this:

To this:

Tidy bed and toys, and minimal dust on the toys they hug to sleep, woohoo!

Step 1: See if this suits your bed

I'm not sure if bolster size is standard. The length of my bolster cover is just nice for our super single beds so this might sit lower for single beds. For even wider beds, you'd need a longer bolster case or use longer drawstrings.

My beds also happen to have a tall "headboard". Not sure if you call that a board when it has holes! So see if there is space to tie the toy hammock to the bed.

Important note: I wouldn't recommend placing this in a baby cot as there is a risk of suffocation! Or in a bed with a young child or a child with neuro disorders etc. You get the idea. Be safe.

An alternative is the foot of the bed so that the toy hammock rests on the outside of the bed.

Once you've ascertained that this would work for your bed, read on!

Step 2: Remove most stitches on the bolster cover

Keyword is MOST. 

There is at least one seam along the length of the bolster cover. It probably has both interlock and running stitches. We want to remove all the interlock but most of the running stitch, leaving the two sides intact.

I was lazy and removed both the overlock and the running stitch at first. The overlock needed quite a bit of plucking by hand after that. So many short threads flew around!

Then I removed the running stitch before removing the interlock. I found that easier. For the running stitch, just rip it like in the above picture at intervals and pull out lengths as you go along. The back will drop off on its own.

For the interlock, I did this - which was messy again!! But more manageable.

Later, which was unfortunate for me, I realised there are many videos on YouTube showing efficient ways to remove interlock stitch :(

Anyway, the opened seam will be the opening of the toy hammock. Trim off loose fabric threads from the raw edge if necessary.

Step 3: Hem the opening

There are two sides to hem. Remember we left the seam at the sides intact? Choose one side to start. You will need to fold the raw edge such that the folded side aligns nicely with the intact seam. Then, hem the edge all the way from one end of the bolster to the other.

When I was in secondary school, we had to fold and iron the hem before sewing it. I'm no longer in school :p so I just folded the edge - twice, so as to hide the raw edge - and used my nail to "iron" it by scratching across the folded part. Learnt this nail trick from school and loved it! But note that it does not work for all fabrics; cotton is fine.

The tiny holes are a good guide to follow when folding. The cloth may also be quite folded after removing the stitches - see picture just above.

I used a lazy blind stitch - you can still see a bit of the thread on the right side, hence lazy :p Ugly, but it works! You can use a machine too. Done in two minutes!

When you reach the other side, merge the hem with the original seam like at the beginning.

Step 4: Secure the sides

You know kids can be very rough. Who cares that the mama has spent hours on it?!

So I stitched a few times over the part where the seam meets the hems like this to strengthen it - see the tiny white vertical line below. I used to do this for the pleat of my skirt back in JC.

Step 5: Check the drawstrings

Four of my six had drawstrings with two endings. The other two had drawstrings in one loop. For those two, I had to cut the drawstrings so that I could tie them to the bed later. Simple job to cut and hem the edges.

And we're almost done! You should have a rectangular thing with three holes - two existing ones and one made by above steps - held together only at the sides as circled below.

Step 6: Tie to the bed

If your bolster case has never been washed, it may be wise to wash it first before bringing it to kiddy space!

How to tie depends on your bed. Ultimately, make sure it is secured to the bed with no chance of it falling on the kid. Show you how I do it:

1. Tie a half knot first - this is important if you don't want your toy hammock to tear! Not kidding, happened years back when Sito was changing bedsheets 😅
2. Loop each end of the drawstring horizontally, in opposite directions
3. Loop each end under the horizontal loop and bring them up vertically to tie above

Step 7: Introduce it to your kids + bonus

Tell them this: "A toy hammock is where toys get their rest after accompanying you the whole night..."

See if it encourages them to keep the toys themselves too! :)

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Hope this is useful! :)