Don't Wake the Wookiee

There are a lot of stores out there in the big wide web that offer free infant car seat covers to new parents. They do the job, for sure. They provide a comfortable, enclosed and shaded place to allow your little bundle of joy to sleep. If only for a few desperate minutes...

They come in a variety of colors and modern patterns. Most are very pretty and make you feel very stylish, even when that spit-up stained shirt and un-brushed hair don't. And they are FREE after all. Not many things associated with your little creature will be free. Except for all the LOVE, of course.

While we enjoyed our stylish cover (graciously given to us by a friend), we are always ones to want to stand out the crowd. We started putting stickers on our infant carrier in an attempt at individuality (and a hearty pride for our local hockey team. Go Ducks!), but started to worry that it could spiral out of control. We didn't want the carrier to look like the back bumper of an old car. 

My husband found the cover to be lacking enough "MAN"-ness and so we bounced around a few ideas. We could continue with the Ducks hockey theme, though that would be seasonal in nature. We could always make it a double sided cover with the Green Bay Packers on the other side, but we liked the idea of both sides being part of the same theme. Plus, Ducks gear seems to bring out the hateful Kings fans and we get enough of them at games at The Pond. 

The idea of Star Wars came upon us since the latest movie was about to be released in the next month and it was Star Wars EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE. If you didn't notice, you must have been living under a rock. We are fervent fans of the originals (no JarJar lovers in this household) and fully plan on educating our young Padawan in the ways of the force. We already have some awesome board books that we read to him at night and some art work in his room. We have the Empire symbol on our car's back window and I had to stop my husband from making his white VW Gulf into a Stormtrooper. Star Wars is timeless and would bring us joy every time we looked upon this new cover, at least for the next two years we would be using it. 

Next, a trip to our favorite Joann's. As we perused the aisles and aisles of fabric, we discussed what each of us wanted out of the design. My husband really liked the patterns of the Star Wars copyrighted fabrics. I was not all too impressed with using two different patterns and wanted to have one side with a single color, maybe to match the color of one of the patterns. As we walked down yet another aisle of fabric, some furry fabric caught my eye. It reminded me of some pillows I had seen somewhere (probably on Pinterest) that looked like Chewbacca. Brown fur with a utility belt strung diagonally, like Chewbacca would over one tall, brawny shoulder. 

Light bulb!

I described my new idea to my husband and he immediately jumped on board. The next week was a whirlwind of cutting, pinning and sewing. See the images below to see our resulting cover.

We went with a newer pattern from the Force Awakens since it was the closest in coloring to the brown fur. We took a bit of a risk since we had not yet seen the movie at that point, but we think we made the right choice. 

We want to keep using this cover after our little Padawan outgrows the car seat, so we plan on removing the Velcro loops and using it as a blanket. The soft fur is short and soft and has already been napped on once, to much success.