Makin’ it: Shopping cart cover (no sew!)

I wanted to buy or make a shopping cart cover for Baby Sawyer to protect him from those nasty grocery store germs when I discovered this tutorial from Kim on Little Rays of Sunshine. Because it uses fleece, there is NO SEWING INVOLVED. It also does double duty as a highchair cover. Yippee and Yahooo!

I already like fleece because it is so cozy and washable. In fact, I spent most of the nineties wearing a fleece jacket as my regular coat. But that’s another issue. When I shopped around for the fleece, I didn’t love the choices. The printed patterns were not my style so I settled on this luscious chocolate made by Polartec with plenty of heft. I figured that once Sawyer was inserted, his baby cuteness compensates for the plain color. I could have also gone crazy embellishing — Whitney suggested edging or multiple colors — but all that extra work is really really not my style.

During the span of one morning nap, I made this cover. I spent about ten minutes measuring, remeasuring, cutting, remeasuring and trimming. Dead simple, yes? In fact, it took me longer to choose a color of fleece.

Ingredients

• 1 large piece of fleece material, 46″ x 54″
• Sharp scissors
• Tape measure

Steps

1. Determine the overall shape and size.Cut your fleece fabric so it is the right size. Larger is fine but it might make your math different than what I described. When I cut my leg holes, for example, I realized I mis-measured so I trimmed a little more so it wouldn’t be lopsided. Oops.
2. Cut leg holes.You want 8″ x 8″ squares that have 2″ between them. Imagine a large rectangle that is 18″ by 8″ with a 2″ pane. In my case, these squares were also 18″ from all edges too. Since it is symmetrical, you can face the fabric in either direction.

After cutting the easiest shopping cart cover on the block, it took me about 50 more minutes to cut and tie the fringe. As far as I can tell, the fringe is purely decorative so I would just skip that step next time (or do it just in the front and back).

Voila, my finished shopping cart/ highchair cover that I made during this morning’s nap.

Too lazy? You can buy shopping cart covers on amazon or etsy. Or just wipe everything down with wipes and hope for the best like I did with my previous two babies (who are fine).

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If you’re not a germ warrior, you should pick another Makin’ It project, we have dozens of other fun choices.