Jane's New Ride

When we registered for items for Micah, we tried to make sure that we stayed gender neutral so they would work for future girls as well as boys.... for the most part we did a good job, but Graco thwarted our plan when it came to car seats. Every cover they had at that time was very girl or very boy. The most neutral we could find was this one~

It's not bad at all, but when I found out Lizzie was a girl, I wanted something more girly for her. So I went on ebay and bought a gently loved girls cover. It's adorable, but after my skinny mini used it for 18 months, it's just kinda nasty. Apparently car seat covers have a two owner limit... even with washing. Sooooo, I really wanted Jane to have something new and fresh but I didn't want to jump on etsy and spend an arm and a leg on it. I decided to be ambitious and try to make it myself....

BAM! It's cute, right? I'm so pleased with how it turned out! To make it, I started by literally ripping out every single stitch on the original seat cover. Ummm, yeah... that took awhile. I used the padding from the original cover and just cut new top pieces from my new fabric using the old as a template.... that took awhile too. I then zigzag stitched all the layers together to make new pieces... repeat after me, that took awhile. I reinforced and cut the slits for the straps and assembled all of the pieces to make it a cover again! The reassembly was one of the easiest steps.. but it still took awhile :) All I had left was to re-attach the old bias tape and I had a new cover with pretty, finished seams and sides!

Oh yeah, but then I had to make the canopy :) I reused the front and back panels, but replaced the middle one and lined all three with the gray patterned fabric. I also changed out the piping to my gray fabric and changed the small padded strip on the front... this all took awhile... are you seeing a pattern? But it was so worth it! I once again reused the old bias tape to finish off the edges, re-inserted the plastic framework and it was good to go! The next pic just shows the canopy lining and the bias tape ribbing~

Well, hello there beautiful.....

Do you want to know the best part? By reusing parts of the old cover, buying my fabric on sale, and using a coupon on my lovely gray thread, the entire project cost me less than 8 dollars... for real.

Not too shabby for 8 bucks :)