Are you traveling out of town for the upcoming holidays? If so and you have young kids, you may be dreading the crazy circus act of juggling all the luggage, kids and car seats. You know what we are talking about...the car seats strategically balanced on your wheeled luggage so you can still carry your sweetie. We've been there and have held our breathes as we maneuver through the crowds praying that someone doesn't bump our car seat/luggage creation and send it all tumbling down.

Well, here's a short tutorial for a car seat bag you can use to help carry that seat around the airport.

Car Seat Bag Tutorial

Supplies:
*Fabric-you are going to need quite a bit so dig through your stash or hit up the clearance rack at the local fabric store
*Belting-about 20 to 25 inches
*Ribbon or rope
*Chalk or pencil
*Sewing machine or serger

I apologize I don't have any pictures of this first step. I really thought I did, but when I went back to look it was gone. So, try to imagine a beautiful picture here.

Step One:
Place your carseat on the base fabric. Using pencil or chalk trace a rectangle outline of the base. Give yourself one to one and half inches extra. If you don't have chalk or pencil, you can just eyeball it. This will be the base of your bag.

Step Two:
Round off your base rectangles corners.


Step Three:
Using a tape measure, measure around your base. If you have a serger and plan on serging all raw edges, then add one inch to this measurement. If you do not have a serger and you are going to sew hems instead then add two inches. This will be how long you need your side fabric to be. Measure your carseat's height and add 5 inches. This is how tall you need the fabric to be. If you want to do contrasting fabric like I did then just figure out how much of each you want. Sewn all together it should still be the height of your car seat plus five inches.

Step Four:
If you have contrasting fabric, sew them together. (Please ignore my casing here in this picture. I determined, after having made this that it is easier to do the casing later.) If you don't have contrasting fabric you can skip to Step Five.


Step Five:
Add embellishments if you like. I just added a simple ribbon.


Step Six:
Once you have your embellishments and your fabric all sewn together, you can serge the sides or fold in twice 1/4 of an inche for a total of 1/2 an inch on both sides and sew to make a nice hem.


Step Seven:
You should have one very large piece of fabric with either serged edges or nice hems. Now it is time to make the top casing. This casing will be for the ribbon or rope so you can easily draw the bag close. Fold the top down and sew.


(Again, please ignore that this piece was done seperately. When you do this you should have one big piece all sewn together)

Step Eight:
Sew the short sides of side fabric together to make a tube. Be careful not to sew your casing shut. I would start sewing about 5 inches down from the top of the casing.

Step Nine:
Now take this tube and pin it to the base fabric with the right sides together.


If for any reason you have too much side fabric, then fix this problem by pleating the corners. These little pleats or gathers should help. Sew the side of the bag to the base.

Step Ten:
Turn your bag right side out. Prepare your belting by either putting fray check on the ends or burning the edges slightly with a match to prevent fraying. Next sew it to the bag. I chose to sew it on the seam.



Step Eleven:
Using a safety pin attached to your rope or ribbon, thread the rope or ribbon through the casing.

That's it! Put your car seat inside and cinch the top. You're now ready for an almost stress-free trip to the airport!

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