Re-covered Car Seat

I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty pleased with myself. Other than working full-time, keeping my child alive, not murdering my husband, and managing to cook sometimes, my accomplishments during this pregnancy have been minimal. While I was so productive during my pregnancy with E--sewing, knitting and crocheting up a storm--I've created NOTHING this entire pregnancy. "Nesting" has been replaced with practical planning. That is until this weekend.

Since E is 13 months and tiny and we are just a few weeks away from bringing little J into this world, we knew we needed another infant car seat. At 17 lbs, E is nowhere big enough to even contemplate a front-facing seat. However, we really didn't want to buy another infant seat for just 6-8 months of use considering our finances. Luckily for us, a former work colleague offered us a car seat and crib that their youngest was just out-growing. Big win!!!

As you can see, the seat was well-worn. While still perfectly functional, I wanted to clean it up--and I did. I took it all apart, and in doing so, I decided that I'd use some houndstooth fabric I bought at the thrift store a few weeks ago (4 yds for $2.99---wahoo!) to recover the seat. I knew it'd be a big undertaking, but my very dormant creative juices needed an outlet. So this weekend, amidst all three of us being sick (our new life since E has started going to daycare), I decided to make this thing happen.

Here's the before pics:

 You can see that it was pretty worn and dirty. I decided that simply washing it in the washing machine wasn't going to satisfy me.

  So all I really did was take apart each little piece of fabric with a seam ripper. That was BY FAR, the most time consuming part. At the recommendation of another blog I saw about recovering carseats, I took pictures as I did it in order to know how to put everything back together. Then, I made matching pieces in the new fabric and sewed it all back up! I sewed the original padding onto my new fabric. My friend gave it to us sans shoulder pads, but I made some because I don't want the straps rubbing into to E's skin. I also washed the straps and all the little fixtures in soapy water. In all, the conversion cost about $10 total. Not bad for a new car seat!

 ALL CLEAN!!!

Other than needing to make about 50 zillion freezer meals before my May 17th c-section, we are almost ready for another little one! Physically, that is. Emotionally and mentally ready for 2 kids 14 months apart? Not a chance.