DIY Arm Sling

Before I begin I want to thank all my friends and family that prayed for Little Bit during this adventure. It’s a blessing knowing that I can just throw something out on Facebook and I have an amazing bunch of people ready to say a prayer for us. Also, a big “thank you” to the doctors, nurses and staff at both hospitals. You were the nicest and most attentive group of healthcare providers we’ve ever had.

When I sit around and think about all the fun crafty things to sew, the thought of an arm sling never really crossed my mind. Christmas sheets for the cat’s bed? Yes. Tooth pillows for baby teeth? Of course! An arm sling? Nope, never. But, here I am showing you how to make one. Hopefully, you won’t ever need these instructions, but as we all know life happens.

The Incident

A week ago, Friday, as Ben and I sat in the stable’s café watching Little Bit ride around, jump, and gallop I suddenly realized that Kenny, the horse, was trotting to the middle of the arena without my baby girl. I pointed to the horse and said, “There’s Kenny!” I then saw the instructor motioning to us to come down. I had to run out of the café, around to the stable entrance, and across to the far side of the arena. It seemed to take forever. I got to the instructor and Little Bit and was told that we needed to take her to the hospital because she had broken her arm. It’s a really good thing that Ben was there, because even though I wasn’t panicked I couldn’t even picture where the car was, let alone how to get to the hospital.

What had happened was while they were in a corner that was not visible to us, Kenny decided to slow down. Little Bit was leaning forward for the gallop and wasn’t expecting a change in pace and fell forward. She tried to hang on to his neck, but had to much forward momentum and hit the ground on her elbow. She ended up breaking the humerus right above the elbow. The whole elbow was detached and shifted back.

Five hours in the E.R., a quick trip home at 11:30 pm to eat and change into clean clothes and then up to hospital #2 to be admitted for surgery in the morning. By 3 p.m. Saturday she was done with surgery and all the post op checks and was ready to go home with two pins in her arm, a soft cast and a lame sling.

Monday she had an appointment with her G.P. He felt bad that she had a boring cast so he gave her a couple rolls of that self adhesive wrap to jazz it up a bit. He is now her “most favorite doctor ever!”

The Sling

The strap sling did the job, but wasn’t comfortable and she wasn’t able to fully relax her shoulder. We couldn’t have weeks of that, so up to the sewing room we went.

I don’t have very much heavy duty fabric. I thought I would need to quilt some together to get something strong enough. Thankfully, I didn’t need to. As we went through the options I found a pair of my old jeans. They had a torn seam, but the material was still good enough for keeping around for random uses. She liked the idea of having a denim sling and so we began.

I held up the leg of the jeans to her arm and measured it from her wrist to a bit beyond her elbow. I cut it off and also cut around a pocket to attach to the front.

Next, I cut down the inner seam to open it up. I kept the seam in tact so that I wouldn’t need to finish that edge.

I placed the pocket on the front and sewed that down first. I used a brown thread that closely matched the thread already used for the jeans and followed both of the seams around for extra strength.

While the pocket is meant for pens I’m sure she’ll use it for sneaking sweets around. If she could, a few wild animals would be at home in there, too.

Next came folding over the raw edge for the inside part of the sling. I folded it over twice and sewed two seams.

Adding the “D” rings was the next step. I just happen to have some in my drawer of random sewing things. I know my mom sent a sandwich bag of them to me for a project years ago, but I can’t remember why. Doesn’t matter, I’m just glad there were extras waiting to be used. I probably should have used some sort of webbing to sew them on with, but alas, I don’t have everything. I did have some ribbon, which was the right width, that had to do the job. I cut the ribbon into four inch sections and sewed a ring onto the wrist end of the sling in both the front and back sides.

One more was added to the elbow end on the body side of the sling. To sew I first made multiple passes across the top, then down to the bottom, multiple passes across the bottom, back up to the top making a rectangle, then diagonally down, across the bottom, diagonally back up and across the top to make a figure-8.

I then held the sling up to her arm and measured out how long it needed to be. I turned it inside out, made a seam with a slight angle to follow the angle of her arm. Then I sewed the raw seam edge over towards the back.

For the strap I scrounged around and found a strap to a guitar case that’s rarely used. It was strong and had clips on it. That’s all I needed it to be. Pretty sure that we could have found other options on duffle bags or luggage. The only problem was that it was not very comfortable. It was cutting into her neck when she gave the sling a trial run. So, a strap cushion came next.

The Strap Cushion

She picked out some super soft fleece fabric from the bin. I cut it into a 16″ x 8″ rectangle and cut a piece of batting one inch smaller in both directions to add to it and give it a bit more cush. I flipped the short ends over and sewed them down.

Next I marked the center of the short end and folded the long sides into the middle leaving a bit of a gap for folding purposes. I sewed both those seams down, folded it down the middle and sewed the outer edges to keep the batting from twisting up.

This slipped onto the guitar strap and was the final piece of the project.

When she finally got to put it on she said, “Ah, this is so comfy.” She was able to stop holding her shoulder up and relax.

First day back to school and she was so excited to tell her friends about her weekend. Ben had picked up some Sharpies for them to write on her cast. It’s a soft cast so it’s not as great of a canvas, but Sharpies do the trick. Sister added a pin for a bit of extra flair and she was ready to go!

Next Friday

We made a trip back to the stables this last Friday. Little Bit wanted to clear the air and let Kenny know there were no hard feelings. She brushed him out and gave him some apple slices. All is good between them.

Hope you never need to make this project, but if you do I hope it turns out well and the injury heals up quickly!