Carseat cushions Sept. 2015

Carseat Cushions
Our grandkids are often travelling by car. It takes over 2 hours to drive here to Grandma and Grandpa's place.

Their paternal grandparents live 2 provinces away, a 2 day drive, so it is essential that the youngsters are comfortable in their car seats.  They had been complaining about "sore bums" so I decided to sew them each a car seat cushion.  "How hard can it be?!" I thought.

We measured the dimensions of the seat, the front, back, sides, distance to the seat buckle. Then I drew a small diagram to take home.

The back of the seats are 12 inches across and the front is 13 1/4 inches wide. The distance to the buckle from the back is 6 inches and from the front is another 5 1/4 inches.

I taped 2 pieces of white paper together and drew a parallelogram the size of their seat bottoms, plus drew a slot where the buckle hole should be 3 inches wide
.

Paper template

I decided to make a practice cushion. I used this template to cut out 2 pieces of fabric, and a piece of batting (about 1/8 inch narrower on all sides)
In the centre I cut the slots to accommodate the car seat buckle.  I sewed a narrow seam around the buckle opening on both the top and bottom fabrics.  So far, so good!

After that I layered all the pieces with the fabrics right sides together, then the batting on top. I sewed a 1/4 seam all around the layers, leaving a a 5 inch opening to turn everything right sides out.  It turned out well and fit the car seats reasonable well. My daughter decided a half inch bigger would fit better.

Waterproof interfacing

For the "real seat covers" I added 1/4 inch all around the outsides of the fabrics and added a piece of waterproof lining/interfacing (found at Fabricland) for the inside. (Just in case of spills or accidents.)

I also added a 4 inch double strip of fabric to the cushion back to tuck into the back of the seat so the cushion didn't move around.

Next I layered all the pieces with the fabrics right sides together, then the lining on top of them and the batting last. (The "tucking in" piece was tucked towards the inside of the layers with raw edges out.)

I sewed them together the same way as the practice one:  a 1/4 seam all around the layers, leaving an opening to turn everything right sides out.

Last I sewed a 1/8 seam all around the whole cushion then also around the centre buckle opening.
Voila, it was done! Easy peasy!  Now their little tushes will be comfy on long car trips. :)
Happy quilting.

Reverse sides of cushions