Car Seat Belt Covers

I was hanging out at Lanae’s house after our family reunion when I noticed her littlest sons neck. He had this deep red mark that looked so painful! He got it from his seat belt in his car seat. Poor guy! 🙁 I immediately knew that I needed to make something to help out.

BUT that was three weeks ago, and to be honest, I completely forgot about it! Lately, my little guy has been getting those same red marks, and I was reminding myself that I needed to put the covers on his car seat. That’s when I remembered that I had forgot about my cute little nephew. Don’t you hate those moments!?

I looked online to find any tutorials for car seat belt covers and I found one at Make It and Love It. I ran upstairs to my craft room to see if I had everything I needed to make some. And I DID! Yay! I hurried through it, made TONS of mistakes (Lanae, if you don’t want these just let me know, and I’ll make some better ones! :)), and now I’m here to share with you what to do, and more importantly, what NOT to do.

What you need:

FABRIC
BATTING
THREAD
DOUBLE FOLD EXTRA WIDE BIAS TAPE
(I used ribbon.)
VELCRO

Instead of following the tutorial on the size of the covers, I just traced the ones I had for my car seat. They are smaller so the chest clip can rest correctly at armpit level. You want to be sure when making these that the car seat can still function exactly as it’s supposed to.

After I cut out my fabric (look familiar? It’s left over fabric from the ties!), I put the batting in and cut it out. The batting I had was the iron on kind. Here are the two mistakes with this step:

#1 – I thought the batting I had was thicker than the kind in the Make It and Love It tutorial, so I only did one layer instead of two. Big mistake. Do two for sure!

#2 – I actually did iron the batting onto the fabric. It didn’t make it any easier, and it flattened the batting even more. That left the cover being too thin.

After the batting is cut and pinned to the fabric, you need to sew it all together. That can be done a number of different ways. I just did what the tutorial called for and did three straight lines that would run horizontal once the covers are done. If I was more skilled with sewing, I would have copied my covers and did an oval about an inch from the edge. You can do anything and the purpose will be served.

Now you add the bias tape or ribbon. I used ribbon because that is all I had on hand. Plus I love the color combination so it worked out! This is where I learned about another mistake:

#3 – If you want this to be super easy, make sure to make the cover a square or at least with all straight edges. I copied my cover exactly and it had curved edges. This made sewing the ribbon on pretty difficult.

When I got to the end, I just cut the ribbon on a curve and then burned the edge like normal. I did the first one and then moved onto the second only to find out my fourth and fifth mistakes:

#4 – Make sure you have enough ribbon or bias tape to go around the covers for each side. It didn’t even occur to me that I might not have enough. You really don’t need a lot to do this part.

#5 – After I ran out, I found another ribbon that could match. I started sewing it on and realized it was a smaller size than the original ribbon! By this point, I had made so many mistakes, I knew I would just have to figure it out and move on. What I did to fix that was make sure the ribbon was even with the other color on one side. That side would be the one that would be visible.

The last step is to sew on the velcro. I also had this on hand leftover from the interchangeable flip flops. You can decide whatever size you want. Since the ones I did were so small, the smallest kind worked out great for me. It left plenty of room for the seat belt inside the cover.

All finished!

They might be a little too thin, but at least it is better than the seat belt digging into a sweet little neck. I hope these work out great for you Lanae!

Like What I Used?

Fabric

Riley Blake Designs, Wheels, Blue Plaid

Ribbon

American Crafts
(We no longer sell this ribbon, but find a great substitute here.)

Find the tutorial at Make It and Love It.