Car Seat Re-Cover 3

If you've been reading along you remember when I put out a call for projects as I'd run out of fun things to do.  KD responded with just what I was looking for, a car seat re-cover.  I've done two of these already that you can read about here and here and I enjoyed them both.  They're a challenge and they're difficult but the end result is well worth all the energy, don't you think?

KD handed me her car seat

along with these fabrics.

There are three sock monkey fabrics and the bundle of polka dots is handmade bias tape (that I was so grateful for, it was perfect for piping).  I'm sure KD would have been fine if I didn't use everything she gave me but they all looked so cute together so I fit them all in.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on this project because it's just like the last one and I detailed it pretty well over here.  Instead I'm just going to show you lots of pictures.

Hopefully KD will forgive me for mentioning that this was the dirtiest car seat I've ever seen and the cover looked practically new after a spin through the washing machine, I almost could have stopped there.  It was also a new challenge because it used piping.  At first I didn't think it would be a big deal but it made the whole thing a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, certain pieces couldn't be assembled until the piping was put on but the piping couldn't be put on until another piece was assembled... tricky but do-able.  In the photos the piping is tough to see but it looks so cute, here's a closer picture.

Here's a closer photo to show all the fabrics together.

I added the banana strap covers but they can be removed if she doesn't want them.

Catie is going to be very sad when this seat gets delivered because she loves it!  She sits and laughs and gets up and sits back down, over and over.  She would get very angry when I was doing fittings and wouldn't let her play.

For all the before and after lovers out there...

I'm going to toot my own horn for a minute here, I did a couple of really smart things on this project and I'm going to tell you about all of them because I'm so pleased with the results.

Starting at the top and working down, the banana piece was supposed to be two pieces sewn together since one of them has much more padding for the headrest.  It made a lot more sense for me to use one piece so the pattern carries on.   Looks cute and doesn't change the functionality.

The side of the carseat has a tiny label telling you how to use the lap seat belt, that got unpicked and re-attached to the new cover (sewing is all about the details).

I added small little straps (they're hidden underneath) to keep those armrest pieces from being pulled up.  They should stay on nice and snug now.

The bottom of the car seat has holes that lined up with holes in the fabric where I assume you could attach the two pieces together somehow.  I've seen this on every car seat cover I've done but I've never actually seen the fabric attached or any hardware to attache it.  I sewed a strap underneath the fabric that ties through those holes to keep the cover nice and snug so it can't be lifted.

Okay, horn tooting over.


So KD now has a custom and improved car seat cover that fits her personality and will hold her little guy comfortably, I hope she's as happy with the results as I am.

The drought of projects has also ended and my list is piling up so there should be a lot more fun posts to come, sorry for the dry spell.



I'll be linking this project up to these great parties.