Scrap Stash: Posture Corrector

In college, I was a competitive ballroom dancer. In those days, my posture was perfect! After sitting in a desk job for a few years though, my posture keeps getting worse and worse -- I can never seem to keep my back straight -- especially while sitting.

Candid evidence caught by the fiance.

I was recently flying a Delta flight and perusing through Sky Mall magazine, as one does while delayed on the tarmac. Inside, I found this neat contraption called the "Straighten Up Posture Corrector" for the low, low price of $38.95. I ripped the page out of the magazine and was determined to make this myself.

Rriiiiipp!

This is probably the easiest sewing project I've ever done. I took a scrap I had lying around. Mine happened to already be hemmed around the edges, so that was one less step I had to do. This project could also be done with multiple smaller scraps by just sewing them together. However, I was lucky enough to have on that was just the right size:

9" x 53"

All you need to do is sew it closed with right sides together like you would an infinity scarf:

Don't forget to pin!

And that's it! Now simply twist the scarf into a figure eight like so:

Figure eight.

And loop your arms through the holes. Adjust the fabric to sit over your shoulders.

Just a little loose.

Ideally, this will be loose enough that you don't feel it when you're standing/sitting up straight. However, because this fabric doesn't have any give, as soon as you start to slouch, the fabric becomes tight (and a bit uncomfortable) bringing you awareness that you're slouching. I think that's my favorite part about this -- it's not actually correcting your posture, just reminding you when you're not doing it right. Helping the body help itself. You'll probably have to adjust the length of fabric depending on your shoulder width, though I tested mine on a few friends and it seemed to fit them all pretty well.

Hey! Nice posture!

This is probably not exactly the way the "official" posture corrector works, but I like it much better and saved myself $38! I noticed that it takes some time to get used to wearing the posture corrector. Since your muscles aren't used to supporting your back so much, you may only want to wear it for 30 minutes at a time at first to build up your muscles without hurting them.