This year - especially last 3 months - I was absolutely obsessed with DIY projects and craftiness with no end! Our family was blessed with three sweet boys - 5, 3, and almost 2 year old - and this December (in 2 weeks exactly) we are going to hold our little girl in our arms! So, most of the projects were and still are tightly connected to our daughter's room, her closet, her, her, HER! To say that I am a little bit crazy about PINK over any other color - to say nothing! I was missing pink so bad! So anywhere I can - I add it!
The tutorial I want to share with you today is how to recover infant car seat.
Here how it started. We had Chicco car seat for the last 5 years - all our boys were in it - one after another. It is (or should I say WAS?!) gray and green - so pretty much goes with boys AND girls! But I wanted PINK! But to my surprise I couldn't find any girlie car seat that would be girlie enough for my taste. Yep, picky me! Can't help! My options were to forget about PINK car seat, sew a slipcover for it or recover it completely... After looking through many sites and blogs of the most crafty women I did find the perfect one -"Make It and Love It". This girl is so awesome and brave, that I couldn't decide to try it or not. Regardless of many many many great pictures of every step of the project that she posted, I still thought I wouldn't be able to do it - it seamed to be to "risky" to take apart the only infant car seat we had just 4 weeks before the due day! Well, here comes my always inspiring and encouraging me husband, who just says "You can do it." And I started ripping the seams apart!
I want to apologize for my tutorial being (maybe) not as professional as it should be to be called a tutorial, but I thought I should share it. Because, if I had had found more than one blog (with lots of pictures and details) about this kind of a project, it would help me a lot.
Infant Car Seat Recovering
1. Fabric.
First of all it took me a couple of days to to find the right fabric with the color I wanted, pattern I liked, thickness it required (medium weight upholstery fabric) and, of course, with the price that would fit our budget. Many crafty people know this online fabric store www.warehousefabricsinc.com and it did meet all my needs and expectations. I got one yard of the fabric for $6.99 and even after the delivery cost - it all cost me about $12. Not bad for a new car seat, right?! By the way, the tutorial I was referring above to is like 90% recovering of the car seat, while mine I just wanted to add a little bit of pink and get rid of the green, that became dirty-green over time. That's one more reason, I think, my tutorial can be useful - to take apart the whole car seat cover AND its canopy takes some strength of mind and confidence in your sewing skills, but if the project includes only 35-40% of ripping seams apart, I think it will make anyone braver.So, back to the fabric - I got it in 3 days, was completely satisfied with color and texture, and the same night I started it!
2. Tons of pictures.
Yes, a lot of them! Make the pictures before - every seam, every detail, every elastic, every hook, every plastic insert, every piece of Velcro - you don't want to miss anything. Every picture becomes so handy, when you put the cover back together, believe me!
2. Take it apart and take pictures of every step.
That was pretty important for me, I was worried, that some seams could be too far from simple ones, and, plus, I could see the order of putting it all back together.
It is in pieces now - this is the moment I realized I MUST finish it, there is no way back!
3. New pieces.
I love this step. I cut the exact parts out of my new fabric and I could see the future result. And it made my heart happy!
4. Put it all together.
I pinned every new piece with a corresponding padding (the one that was in original cover) and zigzagged them together on the edges.
I followed the original design completely. Maybe it is silly that I put Chicco tag back, where it was before, but I think it makes it look good, and anyway, the car seat itself is Chicco still!
5. Sew it together!
Following the pictures of "before" taking apart (but in backward order), I put the main part of the cover together (pinned first, then sewed). And it was such a relief to see it look like a brand new and pretty much done!
You can see on the picture above that the fitted sleeve of the cover is still in "apart" mode - and unfortunately, I didn't make the picture of that step - sewing the sleeve back to the base of the cover. I probably was so excited to get over with it! (Pretty weird, that the lady from "Make it and love it" blog (the tutorial of the car seat recovery I used as a guide) skipped that step as well. What is it with us crafty girls?! LOL!)
6. Bias tape.
Depends on the colors you chose or the changes you needed, you still can use the bias tape from the original cover. I made mine out of the new fabric (not practical at all, but so cute!) I measured it of the exact length as the original tape, pinned it first around the seat cover and sewed it together. Take time here to refresh your memory where and what and how it should go. My cover had two pieces of elastic sewed in into the bias tape - so following the "before" pictures helped a lot.
7. DONE (with car seat cover)!!!
Yes, it is right! Done with the car seat cover - all fresh and brand new! It could be the end of your sewing journey, if you recover a child car seat. As for me it was a DONE step for the big part, but all the fun was awaiting for me still!
Canopy
1. Lots of "before" pictures.
Yes, yes, yes! Don't skip this one! Don't! A canopy may look like less ripping and sewing, but, oh my, so many little details it has, and the order of putting it back together is of a great importance. So, get your camera out and make a longest photoshoot ever! You will not regret it!
2. Pictures of taking apart.
I was so happy that I did it - made a picture of every inch being taking apart. You want the canopy look good - take your time to make the photos of the ripping steps.
3.
Infant Head and Body Pillows
It is the infant car seat cover I was recovering, so I could not ignore grayish and greenish head and body pillows. Even after being washed, they were still yellowish and absolutely NOT brand new looking for my soon arriving brand new baby girl. I used a softer fabric for the head pillow (breathable cotton, which I thought was a good "safety-first" idea) and the body pillow was recovered with the same pink upholstery fabric I used on the seat cover.1. (Guess what comes first?!)"Before" pictures (of course!)
2. Taking apart.
Well, honestly I didn't take apart much here. I took the bias tape off from both - head and body pillows - and that's it. The reason why I didn't - I got scarred that I won't be able to put the pillows' fillings as perfectly tight as they were, and because the cover fabric was light enough to be unnoticeable under the new fabric, I just left it there. If your pillows are covered with darker fabric than the one you want to use, I have two options for you - you can just cover the old fabric with the layer of thicker fabric of lighter color (or just some white cotton) and then recover it, or you can go all the way and take apart the pillows and re-fill them (made of new fabric) after. Or, I guess, there is always more options, like - think about using the dark enough fabric, so you don't have to worry about it at all.3. New fabric parts.
I put the fabric over the pillows and pinned then in the creases and edges first and then stitched it by hand, trying to keep the shape of the pillow as tight as it was originally with no extra fabric sticking out anywhere.
4. Bias tape.
The same step we had before - measure the new bias tape of the same length, pin it, sew it! Done!
5. Extra details to take care of.
Depends on the model of your car seat, the cover can have different details on the basic cover or on the infant body pillow part. Mine has a hole for the adjustment strap. And that's what I did. I hope that the pictures I show will be enough to show the steps.
6. Infant belt shoulder covers.
It was the easiest part of the project. The last one. And knowing, that I am almost done, made this little part of the recovering the best! Making pictures of "before" helped me still a lot (even though it was pretty clear how and what, I decided not to risk it).
And here you go - DONE DONE DONE!!! It took me about 3 days (not straight 72 hours, i couldn't afford it with my three little guys running around and asking for my attention by any means).
What do you think?
I am loving our new infant car seat - it is girly and PINK (exactly what I wanted), I spent about $12 to make it!
I hope I did encourage you to try a project like this and I do hope my the very first sewing tutorial fits its name - TUTORIAL!
God bless,
Alya
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