Car Seat Cover

With our first born we had a car seat cover very similar to this one.

 I don't know for sure, but I think I picked it up at a consignment shop.  It had a busted zipper, so I fixed it and used it with our 2nd child, then I gave it away.  We've been missing it, so I decided to make another one for our new baby.

I had some alpine fleece left over from some blankets I made for my sisters a while back, and this is what I decided to use.  This is my first tutorial.  Here it goes.....

What you need:  - Fabric of choice, enough to cover your carrier with a little extra allowance for your elastic casing.  My final cut was 36 inches long x 22 inches wide. 

- 37 inches of 1/4 inch elastic.

- Hook and Loop, zipper, snaps, or buttons.  (I'm using hook and loop, because I have a lot of it on hand.)

This is our infant car seat. (And my son who loves having his picture taken.)

And this is the alpine fleece I'm using for my project.  I didn't have enough pink to use for our baby girl's cover, so I'm using the pink and yellow scraps to make flowers to add to it.  And of course, Delsin dove down in time to get his face in the shot.

The first thing I did was lay my green fleece out and position the car seat upside down on top of the fabric. 

I then slid the carrier almost to the edge of the fabric.  I made sure to hold the edge up to where I wanted the edge of the cover to lay, then I added 1/2 inch to that for the elastic casing.  I used a permanent marker to mark where I will cut.

Next, I'm cutting out the flowers from my accent fabric. I like to use my cookie cutters for this process.

Now, pin the shapes onto your cover keeping in mind to leave plenty of room for the sides of the carrier to curve over the edge of the car seat.  Also make sure to leave room for your flap, where your baby's face will be exposed, when the flap is open.  I positioned one of the flowers to be on the flap.

I'm securing the flowers in the middle by sewing a circle in the center.  This way the flowers will be three dimensional.  Since fleece doesn't fray I don't have to worry about the edges.

Next, we need to sew the casing for the elastic. 

You want to turn over the 1/2 inch allowance you cut.  Or 1 inch as I did in some places.  The cover fits, so I'm not worried about it.  Be sure to leave a little gap at the end.  Just enough room to fit a safety pin, as you will be using that to thread your elastic through the casing.

Now you need to cut your elastic.  Delsin is demonstrating how I wrapped the elastic around the carrier stretching it to the way I wanted it to stretch when I put the cover on.  I ended up with 37 inches.  Not to tight and not loose.

Next, secure a safety pin to one end of your elastic and thread it through the casing on your cover.

Now we need to cut the flap.

I used a pencil because I don't have a water soluble marker, that I can find.  The pencil didn't actually make a mark, just a groove.  In the next photograph you can see that I used pins to mark my corners before cutting.

Now you cut the top and both sides of the flap, making sure to leave the bottom of the flap attached.

I measured my hook and loop to the width of the flap, leave a little extra to overlap the sides of the opening. 

Secure the hook portion on the underside of the top of the opening,

  with the hook facing outward.  You want the hook to face outward so that it won't accidentally scratch the baby.

Next, sew the loop tape to the underside of the flap, so that the loop is downward facing.  This way it lines up with the hook tape.

Voila!  All done!

It isn't airtight all the way around the flap.  If we lived in the Northern states I would be sure to put hook and loop all around the edges of the flap, but we live in the Southern states, so this is fine for now.

I got an action shot!  She loves it! (And this girl normally hates being in her car seat.)