The Hanging Cradle

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Before building this project, read the safety note in the comments section of this article. — MOTHER

Tired of awkwardly designed, overpriced nursery goods? "You don't have to put up with them," says Mark White of Kodiak, Alaska. And Mark should know. Because he (and wife Karen) designed and made the beautiful cradle you see here... at as cost of little more than a couple of dollars.

The months-long waiting period prior to the birth of our first child was a joyful time for us . . . and part of its magic lay in the many preparations we made for our baby's arrival. Among the first of those preparations was our construction of a macramed, hanging baby cradle.

We'd looked at some of the space-eating monstrosities offered by the makers of mass-produced cribs . . . and—sad to say—we found their wares entirely impractical. For what we wanted was a cradle that'd be [1] lightweight, [2] compact, and [3] collapsible for easy storage . . . and we certainly hadn't found these qualities in any of the items we'd seen.

Then too, we wanted our firstborn's bed to be soft and warm and comfortable, to give the child a feeling of security. Somehow, plywood headboards and prison-like bars didn't give us that feeling.

Our thinking on cradles was influenced by something else, too: We wanted our baby to sleep as close to our bed as possible, so Karen could—if need be—respond to the infant's cries by lifting him/her right into bed with us.

In the end, we decided to make our own cradle . . . a macramed, hanging cradle that we could suspend over the foot of our bed!

CRADLE COMPONENTS

As you can see from the accompanying illustration, our baby's hanging bed consists of three components: [1] an open, rectangular, wooden "upper frame", [2] a one-piece hardboard bottom, and [3] interwoven nylon twine sides.

The upper frame measures 20" X 28" (a bit on the small side, we've found) and consists of four pieces of scrap two-inch lumber joined together by five-inch-long No. 12 wood screws. Along the length of each framing member I drilled pairs of holes—1/4" in diameter and spaced 3/4" apart-every two inches, to accommodate the strands of twine. (Altogether, then, I made ten pairs of holes in each 28" framing member and six pairs along each 20" piece.) Naturally, for our child's safety I sanded each piece of wood carefully after drilling, to eliminate splinters.

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