Car Seat Covers

This year for the Festival of Trees, one of our projects is to make car seat covers. I got the idea from my friend Abby who made me one for Bailey and I think it was one of the greatest gifts we got. It keeps out the sun, the cold, and hopefully the germs. I decided to make some for friends in addition the ones I made for Festival and took pictures along the way for those who want to try it out. I'm not a seamstress my any means so if I can make it work, pretty much anyone can do it.

The supplies you'll need include:

2 yards of fabric, one yard for the top and a corresponding yard for the underside
1 - 2 yards of grosgrain ribbon
(Before I knew the difference between ribbons I bought some of the silky stuff. It worked okay, but grosgrain worked better). If you are just going to tie knots around the carseat handle you'll only need one yard of ribbon, but if you want to tie bows you'll need closer to two yards.
a lighter to burn the ends of the ribbon to prevent fraying
thread
scissors
iron
and of course a sewing machine

Iron both pieces of fabric first then lay the fabric flat with both right sides facing each other.


I used the car seat cover I already have as a pattern and traced it with chalk.
(Because you're reading these directions I assume you don't already have a carseat cover to use as a pattern. hehe. Here's a simple pattern to help you out with the dimensions).



After tracing the pattern, pin all the way around the chalk outline and a few in the middle to keep the fabric in place.

Sew along the chalk line leaving about a 4 - 5 inch opening to turn the fabric right side out.


Cut off the excess fabric around the edge leaving about a half inch of fabric from the seam.
Turn the fabric right side out and iron the edges to make them flat and to create a nice edge. Be sure to push to fabric to the edge. And the place you left the 4 - 5 inch hold, tuck in both sides, iron it, and then pin.

Sew around the entire cover about a 1/4" from the edge. I used the right edge of the pedal as my guide.


On this particular cover I used ribbon to attach the cover to the carseat. I've also seen strips of fabric with velcro attached. The strips would require two pieces of fabric each 10" x 4". Use whatever fits your fancy.
I used one yard of ribbon cut in half for this cover, which makes each piece of ribbon about 18 1/2" long. If you want to be able to tie a bow around the handles of the car seat rather than a knot, you'll need about double that or a total of 2 yards of ribbon. It's just whatever you prefer.

Burn the edges of the ribbon to prevent it from fraying.

To position the ribbon, measure 12" in from the edge and 18" from the top of the cover on both sides and put a small chalk X.

Center both pieces of ribbon over the X and pin them in place.

Sew a square with an X through it to secure the ribbon to the cover.

Ta da. There you have it.
And here's the finished product.


I folded mine up so the ribbons could be used to tie up the cover like a little package. Cute huh!?

Let me know if I didn't explain something very well and I'll try to explain it better.

Have fun and I would love to hear how your own project goes.

And I just have to add that my daughter was very impressed at my work :).