Hand made Eye Patch

At only 18 months, R. was diagnosed with strabismus (also known as lazy eye). This is a condition where the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. To strengthen his eye, his doctor suggested patching his stronger eye so that the lazy eye could grow in strength. I searched high and low and found no eye patches at the store. The only ones that I came across involved tape which is what I didn't want.

Then, I noticed one day a kid with a patch on his eye glasses which would give the same effect as patching his eye. I researched online and found my solution. After looking at some pictures, I decided to make it personalized for R. so that he would want to have his eye patched. I thought, how hard could it be to actually sew one?

R. finally decided on a Mario themed patch. I had one left over circle from a goof up on their Power Mario cap I made for E.'s birthday last year. With some left over felt, I cut out two semi-circles and two squares with a semi-circle cut out. I also layered another piece of felt behind the circle M so that you couldn't see any light through it.

I took the semi-circles and placed them on top of one another to form a complete circle. This will be the opening of where the glasses will be placed.

Next, I took the rectangular piece.

I placed the semi-circles on top of the rectangular piece and sewed them together.

Just guide your needle around the circle. My sewing machine is still broken so I had to hand stitch everything.

I took the other rectangular piece and sewed it to the circle M.

Place the two pieces on top of each other (right sides together) and sew all around the edge.

You will need to leave a little opening on the straight end to be able to slide the glasses through it.

Flip the patch inside out.

Slide the eye glass through the opening and out the other end.

Adjust to center it properly.

Voila! A hand made eye patch

I tried on R.'s glasses to make sure that there was no light coming into his left eye (hence the necessary side rectangular panel).

I am elated that he absolutely loves his patch and is willing to wear it anytime.

Dinner is no exception.

Neither is playing on his DS. He has requested a Thomas the train one so I am sure that will be happening sometime soon. Hopefully the patch will fix his eye and he won't need surgery in the coming future. Total project time was 20 minutes. For my 20 minutes, I got to hear, "You're the best, Mom." Now, you definitely can't beat that.