Make This: Car Seat Canopy Tutorial

Do you remember our half-square triangle piecing tutorial from last month?  As we teased at the end of the tutorial, we’ve finished a fun little baby project with our HST pieced top.  In today’s tutorial, we’ll show you how to use either a pieced top or a whole piece of cloth to make a cute and protective cover for baby’s car seat.  After having three other little ones, I know that this is really an important piece of baby gear to have.  In the past, I’ve used my canopy as a cover for sleeping baby, a shade from the sun, a germ (and unwanted attention) barrier in public, and a makeshift nursing cover or blanket.  So many uses for one simple thing!

Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

-36″x42″ outside fabric.  This is where we used our half-square triangle pieced top.  After piecing the triangles, I added 6″ borders all the way around to make it the right size.
-36″x42″ lining fabric.  All fabric for this project is from the Rocket Age line.
-Two 6″x8.5″ rectangles for the hanging tabs
-Two 2″ sets of velcro closures

Start by laying out your outside and lining fabric with the right sides together.  Pin all the way around.For rounded corners, draw a curve on each corner using a round object as a guide.  We used a 12″ embroidery hoop for ours.  The line that you draw will be the cutting line, so use it as a guide as if it were the edge of the fabric as you sew around the curve.Now, sew all the way around the whole thing with a 1/4″ seam, leaving an opening of a few inches along one of the sides.  Cut the corners off along the drawn lines.  Turn the whole thing inside-out and press the seam flat all the way around.

Top stitch all the way around with a 1/8″ seam, making sure to catch the opening you left when turning.  The blanket portion of the canopy is done!  Next, let’s make the velcro tabs. Take your 6″x8.5″ rectangles and fold in half lengthwise, with right sides together.

Sew along the three open sides with a 1/4″ seam, leaving a 1-2″ gap for turning inside-out.Trim the corners a little before you turn it inside-out and press the seams flat.Top stitch all the way around each tab with a 1/8″ seam.Pin the velcro pairs to the tabs right under the top stitching, with one part of the pair on one side of the tab and the other part on the other side of the tab.  Super confusing sounding, right?  Just look at the photo above and hopefully it makes more sense.Sew each piece of velcro in place with a rectangle and an X.  The tabs are now ready to put onto the canopy.Lay the canopy over the top of your car seat to decide where the straps should go.  (If you don’t have a car seat to reference, our straps are about 8″ apart and about two-thirds up the blanket.)  I prefer to have more blanket in the front of the seat, to where it almost touches the ground.  Once you know where you want the straps to go, put a pin in the blanket.  Take the canopy off the car seat and lay it flat.  Using the pins you placed as reference, pin the straps in place.  Put the end of the tab with velcro facing up at the top, so it folds over the top of the car seat handle.Sew each tab in place with another rectangle and “x”.  And that’s it!  You’re done with the baby car seat canopy.

Perfect!  Now baby has a stylish and functional car seat canopy.  You can use a pieced top, extra trim or embellishments, or minky on the inside to further customize your car seat canopy.  We made this one for a summer baby, so we just used regular cotton for the lining to keep it from getting too hot in there.  Use your imagination and go to town with it!

-Audrey & Diane