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Hey it's Vanessa from www.craftygemini.com and today's sewing tutorial is on how to make
a shopping cart cover for your small child. If you're like me you probably don't like
to put your small kids especially babies and toddlers in those nasty shopping carts at
all the different stores that we have to go to so I always like to keep one of these on
hand in my car whenever I'm out and about with my son to make sure that he's kept away
from all those germs. Let's go over the supplies you'll need and we'll jump right into the
project. You're going to need a ruler, a pair of sharp scissors, your rotary cutter with
the corresponding mat underneath, a large safety pin, some pins, a marker, 1 1/2 yards
of 1/2" wide elastic, and then you're going to need you fabric. So, you'll need two pieces
of fleece that measure 45" x 42" each. So the first thing you want to do is take one
of your pieces of fleece fabric measuring 45" x 42" and fold it in half. Ok? It doesn't
matter along which side, it's not going to make a difference. After you fold it in half
as you see I've done here already you are going to fold it in quarters now. So we want
to make sure it's like this. And here just pretend that this is fully square, right?
So, if I would have folded it in four… make sure you have the folded edges down here.
You are not going to cut on this side. And then what you want to do is just take your
rotary cutter and just gently cut a little curve like this. It doesn't have to be perfect.
If you have something that's like a big curved platter like that you can use that as your
guide but I kind of just eyeballed it. This hole here for one of the leg holes…what
I did was I just took a cd and placed it…measuring from one end here to 19". And at the 19" mark
I tried to line up the center of the cd at the 19" mark. And then I just got my fingers
and measured four fingers up from the fold and that's where I placed the cd. And then
I just take some kind of a marking device and I took a marker in this case because this
is fleece and it's fuzzy and the chalk won't really stick on it too good. And then just
eyeball about 3/4" or 1" around the perimeter of the cd and then you get the size hole that
you want. Just so you have an idea the circle…you can also use like a saucer or a platter. This
is about 6 1/2" in diameter or 6 1/4". Just something roughly that size would work fine.
Now the line that you see down there that I have is actually for the belt loops. So
if you are going to be putting a younger child in the shopping cart and you want to use this
cover you are going to want to secure them in with some kind of a seatbelt. So we're
just going to make the mark for that. And to do that mark what I did was I just measured
from the other end of my fold here. Measured about 7" and it's about 4 1/2" up from the
fold. So 4 1/2" inches up this way, 7" this way and then I just made a mark about 3" wide.
So here is the second fabric that I chose to use and again it is folded in half width-wise,
the same way that it comes off the bolt in your store. And I'm going to line up with
the fold down here. I'm going to line up my pattern piece right?… that I've already
done right on top of it matching up the folds. I'm going to cut around it. And then we're
also going to cut through these circles…through all four layers. So, I like to pin down around
it so it holds all four layers where they should be before I actually start cutting.
Just cut through each layer individually if you have to. You're also going to do the same
thing for this slot here. It's not really a hole you're cutting, just a slit. So we've
cut our holes through all four layers and that accounts for all of the leg holes that
we need. And then we've also done the same thing for the belt strap. Next thing you want
to do is take each of these pieces individually to your sewing machine and you're going to
zigzag stitch real nice and close to the edge of all the openings. Make sure that you are
not sewing it with the pieces folded together. You want to open it up like this…and then
go around it in a zigzag stitch here and here. And then when you come to the belt loops you
are going to do the same thing. You want to zigzag stitch around the openings to secure
that hole there. So I'm just going to do a basic zigzag stitch around the opening to
secure it in place. It doesn't matter if you come off the edge a little bit. Fleece is
really stretchy and it tends to move on you so we are just doing this to secure the edges
and give it a little decorative touch. So once you finish stitching around your leg
hole openings and the belt loop openings you're going to take one of your fabrics and just
lay it with the pretty side facing up. You want to make sure that the fleece you've chosen
either it does or it doesn't have a right or wrong side. But just make sure you are
choosing the side that you want show on the outside and you're putting that side facing
up right now. Then you're going to take your other piece of fabric and matching up all
the openings you're going to place it with the pretty side facing down. Here I've matched
up both of my belt loop openings here. And what I'm going to do is place two pins on
the outside of it just to hold it in place right there. Do the same thing to the other
one. And do the same thing to our leg holes making sure that the fabric is laying nice
and flat. Now what we're going to do is pin around all our raw edges here. Because this
is where we are actually going to sew. Now that we've pinned all the way around our shopping
cart cover what you want to do like in any other project that you're going to be flipping
inside out is to mark the space that you are going to leave open to remind yourself when
you are sewing not to sew there. So I'm just going to lightly… for a big…for something
as big as this and working with fluffy fabric like fleece you maybe want to leave like a
10 inch opening. So now I'm going to go to my sewing machine and start on either end
here, backstitch to secure the ends, and I'm just going to sew all the way around using
my presser foot as my guide and I'm going to sew all the way around the big circle of
my shopping cart cover. What we're going to do now is sew another line of stitching all
the way around but this time it's going to be what secures our elastic inside in a casing.
So I'm going to measure about 3/4" or an inch if you just want to be safe or if you are
using wider elastic and that's where I'm going to stitch my next sewing line. I'm just going
to start somewhere where I started before on the end of my opening or one of my openings.
I'm going to measure about 3/4" away from my previous stitching line. So if this is
my first line, I'm going to start sewing around there. And so I just want to eyeball this
here and kind of just ride the presser foot all the way the entire length around again.
So before we flip anything inside out you want to feed the elastic through the casing
you've created with your stitching. And to do that, I just grab one end of the elastic
and put my big safety pin through it. Close it. Ok? And then I'm going to get the safety
pin head and fit it in there in between those two stitching lines. And I'm just going to
with this hand grab the head of the safety pin and with this hand push it, push it, and
just pull this… and you're going to continue to do that the entire way around. One thing
you want to keep in mind is the end of this.. you may want to either put another safety
pin or just pin it somewhere to your project. Because as you start feeding this stuff through
you don't want the end to go in without being held down. So what we're going to do is…
I'm going to pull out this elastic and meet it up on the other end. ANd in my case I have
a little more elastic than I need. I like to gauge it from the 1 1/2 yards and then
you can kind of eyeball what you'll need or what you won't need. So just.. I'm just going
to cut off some if it because I still need some extra to even this stuff out. You're
going to go to your sewing machine and lay one on top of the other so they are both flat
and just zigzag stitch back and forth to secure this in place. You can see where I just zigzag
stitched back and forth and then I just trimmed away the excess elastic. Now I'm just going
to even it all the way out by stretching out my shopping cart cover. And you have two options
right here. Because the fleece doesn't fray you can actually just leave it like this without
flipping it inside out but if you don't want this edge to show then what you can do is
flip it inside out by reaching into your opening and flipping it all through. It's a little
tricky but what you want to do is stretch out the elastic while you fold the fabric
in. And I like to just put a few pins here. And then we are going to sew close to the
folded edge just to hold it in place. If you catch the elastic it won't be that big of
a deal but try not to. Now that it's pinned closed just go to your sewing machine and
just use a straight stitch or a zigzag stitch whatever you want to do. But I'm going to
go straight stitch and close to the edge just to hold that opening shut. So to sew this
opening shut I know that the elastic is not in the casing but that's not really going
to be a problem in this case because its such a small piece out of the entire length of
it. What you want to do though since it's elastic is pull your fabric as you stitch
so that you can make sure that the fabric is nice and taut. So here is a little tricky
part now what we need to do is kind of to secure the two layers to each other so I'm
just going to reach through both layers and again match up our openings. So for the belt
loop like you did in the beginning just put two pins on the outside of the opening. And
so you're going to go to your sewing machine and just use a basic straight stitch and just
stitch somewhere around. It doesn't have to be that close to it but you just want this
to be close together so it's easy for you to find when you're trying to slip the seatbelt
through there. So, we're done sewing around the belt loop openings. And now we're going
to do the exact same thing we did but to the leg holes. Ok, so we finished sewing the last
little part which was just taking the basic straight stitch around our leg hole openings
and that should secure it nicely in place. If you are a stickler for things like this
you can go ahead and trim this real close or you can use bias binding and cover it up
but for me I don't really care. It looks cute and it'll hold up in place. And this is really
kind of weird to show when it's like this. It just looks like a big pair of underwear.
But as you can see it will fit over the shopping cart like this. Ok? And I'll show you now
how it looks. So I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial on how to make your very own shopping
cart cover out of two pieces of fleece and some elastic. It's real simple and this is
really the basic and most beginner level version that I could come up with to make one. If
you want to start experimenting or you're more of an advanced beginner or maybe even
and intermediate you want to try using maybe just cotton woven basic quilting fabrics you
can do what I did here which was use basically the regular cotton version of this same fabric
that I found at my local shop. And you can use just two pieces of fabric and what I did
for the center to give it that extra bulk is added a layer of batting. You do the same
technique but you just add another layer of batting and then to finish off the edges what
I did was some bias binding that I created out of fabric. So there are definitely more
advanced steps for making a shopping cart cover but I tried to keep it as basic as I
could in this one so any of you out there can do it! And as usual be sure to upload
pictures of your completed projects on our Facebook page. We always love to see what
you make from the Crafty Gemini tutorials. (My son says bye!)