Summer in Germany

...is unpredictable. As usual, we're getting really hot weather, cold weather, sunshine, rain, nice breezes and storms. It's not easy to plan and pack suitable clothes for a summer holiday, and as usual, for this year's trip to the sea we packed everything. Shorts and jeans (and dresses for myself), tees and pullovers and jackets, sandals and rain boots, light pjs and extra blankets, rain gear and beach clothes.

But no matter how unstable our weather can be, there is one thing I know for sure: black car seats are torture in hot weather.
Even if it might be necessary for a few days only, I decided to sew slipcovers for our kids' car seats. Of course, it was a last-minute sewing project which I finished only hours before our departure, but it was so worth it! As it turned out, we had the most wonderful, clear-sky-bright-sun-light-breeze perfect beach weather ever! And each day, when we came back from the beach, the car was hot, but those car seats did not feel like boiling hot lava. Oh, and they look pretty cute as well, don't you think?

I even made matching neck pillows :-)

I drafted the pattern for the covers myself by pinning muslin fabric to each piece of the seats and copying all seam lines as accurately as possible. Then I made a test version out of some really cheap poly jersey. After a few adjustments, I finally dared to cut into my fabrics. Again, I happened to have just the right amounts of each fabric in my stash. The middle part of each cover is a wonderful summer terry that I had bought two years ago and at the time used to line some winter hats drafted off some RTW hats. I doesn't have much stretch, so the hats weren't easy to put on to begin with and the boys outgrew them quickly. But sooo cute ;-)

But back to summer sewing. This terry is perfect for the middle part of the seat covers, as this is the part that the boys sit on and so a lot of stretch would probably mean lots of wrinkles. In the final versions, these pieces are a tiny bit too large, but I think the small wrinkles to the sides are okay.

For the inner side parts, I used this wonderful ROBOTS jersey by lillestoff that magically matched both colorways AND was just about large enough to cut two sets from. As it wasn't large enough to cut the outer sides as well, and nearly all of the terry was also already used up, I used some Vicente stars by Swafing that I also happened to have at hand in the colors of both sets. How cool is that?

With the small leftover scraps from the stars jersey and the summer terry, and appliqued with one robot each, I sewed some quick and easy neck pillows. The free pattern came from Frau Scheiner - a huge thank you for all the wonderful free patterns you've got on your blog!!! And those patterns in your shop are very tempting ;-)

Of course, the pattern recommends using woven fabric, but I really wanted the pillows to match the seats (and - shhh - to use up those scraps). So I just went for it. It was a bit more difficult to stuff evenly, as the knit fabric stretches while stuffing, and it's more difficult to avoid lumps. But all in all, I think this wasn't a big problem. And the result is soooo soft and cuddly, I think I'd use knits again if I were to sew more of these.

Now all that's left to do is to train my boys to actually use the pillows rather than only play with them ;-)