52: car seat cover

A friend of mine gave us a car seat cover that we can use during the cold winter months, but I wanted to find something we could use during the summer and fall months to keep sun and rain off of her, and the fingers of strangers away from her.  There are various car seat covers available that do the above jobs, but most of them just weren’t very cute, so I decided I wanted to make my own.  I had previously saved a simple pattern for a cover, so I scrounged around on my hard drive for the link.

On July 13, 2009, Stacey Wolfley (The Thrifty Chick) passed away from a stroke 2 weeks after giving birth to her 4th child.  I found her blog in a fall a few months after she passed away, and saved the link to her car seat cover, never knowing her story.  I was saddened to hear that she had passed away leaving such a young family, when I found her blog again when I was ready to make a cover.  Make sure you check out Stacey’s blog for full instructions on the car seat cover, as well as other cute sewing projects for kids and babies.

 

Car Seat Cover

Materials:

2 complementary fabrics (1.5 yards of each)
Ribbon (for ties)

 

Steps:

1. Pull out your car seat and measure the length of cover you will need.  This length will be different for everyone based on their car seat and how much they’d like the cover to hang over on both ends.   Stacey recommended 31 inches wide, but use a measuring tape to estimate how much you’ll need.

2. Cut your two fabrics to the desired size, adding on 1 inch for seam allowances.

 

3.  Place your two fabrics right sides together, pin, and stitch all the way around leaving an opening to turn it right side out.  You have the option of doing square corners or rounding them out.  I did rounded corners (using an upside down glass to draw circles to follow in the corners) but it definitely made the project more work.

 

4.  Turn cover right side out and iron the seams.  Iron and pin the opening closed.

 

5.  Topstitch all the way around the cover, taking special care at the opening.  I stitched mine about a 1/2” in.

6. Decide what you would like to do for ties.  You can make some fabric strips out of one (or both) of your fabrics and use velcro to hold the cover on, or you can use ribbon.

7.  Figure out where your straps need to be placed on the cover.  It may not be completely centred length wise, but make sure they are an equal distance from both sides and tie in a place that doesn’t interfere with carrying the car seat.

 

8.  Stitch the ties onto the cover.  I did a square and then an ‘X’ to make sure it wouldn’t come undone. 

 

9.  Tie/velcro your cover onto your carseat and admire your handiwork!

       

Notes:

- I originally purchased pink flannel as the lining fabric, thinking it would make the cover a bit warmer come the fall, however after prewashing both fabrics, the flannel shrunk slightly ‘off’ and it was proving overly difficult to match up any edges.  I decided to find a different fabric that would work better, and when at the Bargain Shop one day, found some sage green pillowcases that were the PERFECT colour for only $4.  I pulled out the stitches on one of them to open it up and am using the other one as my ‘couch pillow’ cover.
- I chose ribbon for my ties, however velcro would work just as well, and you could then attach a flower, button, etc. to the top to make it more decorative.
- The most time consuming part was figuring out where the ties needed to be and getting them sewed on.  It just wasn’t something I was very proficient at.  Luckily its a part of the cover that no one is ever going to see.