Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Reversible baby toucher de-tourer! Car seat cover

NOTE: If you haven't already head over here and enter the giveaway!

A good friend of mine is having a baby soon. She wanted one of these little guys to cover the baby while in the car seat to hopefully prevent strangers from touching him and or breathing their icky germs on him. Tell me I'm not the only one who worries about those sort of things?! I know there are other tutorials out there but I haven't found one that is reversible so I started thinking about it and this is what we came up with. Hopefully you wont make the same mistake I did. This project was ALMOST a huge flop! AH! I'll tell ya more about this later...

This is a really easy peasy project so I didn't take a ton of pics.

You'll need:
1 yard of main fabric (front)
1 yard of coordinating main fabric (back)
20" or about 2/3 yard of a fabric that coordinates with both front and back fabric
coordinating thread

Start by cutting all of your fabric. Here is a cut list for you to make things easy!

8 - 2 1/2" x length (usually 44") strips
Cut each of your yards 19 x 36 and 25 x 36


Lets start with our straps so that we can assemble quickly when it comes time.Start by folding 1/4- 1/2 inch under on each short 2" side. Then lace two strap pieces right side together and sew down the both of the long sides. Leaving the small ends open.

Turn right side out and topstitch all the way around.

Measure how wide your handle is. You want to be able to carry the carseat while the ties are tied. So you want the ties to be just on the outside of where you would grip the car seat to carry it. For us that was 8 1/2 inches.



Take your main fabric pieces and fold in half and press a crease. I put the 4 1/4 mark at the center crease to evenly space the ties. Then pinned the ties to the right side of the fabric where I made the marks.

Then take your other piece of fabric (same print) right sides together and stitch a 1/4-1/2" seam.

Repeat this for the back piece.

Finally place the front and back pieces right sides together and stitch around the whole thing leaving a 4-6" opening for turning.

Trim your corners, turn right side out, press your seams and topstitch. You could also round the corners if you like before sewing them together!

Tada!


See totally reversible! Yippee! It's like a two for one!




So the big flub was: I was so excited about making this that I wasn't thinking straight. It was also sort of late, because the only time we get to sew together is after our cuties go to bed! I cut the fabric WRONG and we almost scrapped the whole project. I cut it so that the fabric was 18x44 and 18x44 instead of the corrected measurements listed above. Luckily I figured it out before we stitched the two pieces together and we basically cut them in half the opposite way and repositioned the straps so that it would work. There is however a big glaring seam down the middle. If you look closely you can see where the pattern doesn't quite line up. But it is still incredibly cute! I wish I had thought of this when my babes were still little!

Anyway I just wanted to share with you all that I am NOT a perfect seamstress. I mess things up too from time to time but it is all about making the best of it!

Love and Hugs,

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