Friday, August 30, 2013

cover-ups






Cover up  n.  1. a device or stratagem for concealing;  2. a loose outer garment

Let’s talk about cover ups.  No, no, no… I did not do something I shouldn’t have.  At least I don’t think so!  This month we are embarking on 3 months of small projects that can be made in time for Christmas.  I thought about covering up the fact that I’m already thinking about Christmas.  When you are a knitter you have to think about Christmas early.

So I thought rather than creating some story to cover up the fact that Christmas is on my mind, I would create a knitted cover up!  A baby cover up, to be exact.  Babies are always needing to be covered up for some reason or other.  As cooler weather approaches we’ll start to see moms bundling their little ones under blankets in their car seats and strollers.  And inevitably, as mom happily drives down the road, baby kicks the blanket off in the back seat and is no longer … yeah … covered up.  Or Mom and Baby are out for a brisk fall stroll and suddenly the stroller is rolling over the pretty blanket that baby has kicked off.

Too often moms cover baby with a blanket, then fasten the 5-point harness over the blanket.  There are lots of patterns available that even show you where to place slits for the harness straps to go through.  Neither is a good option.  Did you know that the minute you place a blanket under the shoulder straps of a car seat or stroller, the safety rating is voided?!  If anything were to happen and the strap came unbuckled, the parent would be at fault for improper use of the safety seat. 

So I set out to design a car seat (or stroller) cover up that would stay in place and not affect the safety rating of the device.  A car seat cover up is really just a small blanket, so you could use any pattern stitch you wanted to.  The key is how it attaches to the car seat.

This month’s pattern is a Car Seat Cover Up that has a small strap on the back.  The base of the 5-point harness slips through the loop and holds the blanket in place.   Once this is done, fasten the harness normally then draw the blanket up over baby and tuck in.
  



The Knitting Doodle’s Car Seat Cover Up is made with bulky weight yarn, using the Double Seed Stitch pattern.  It an easy and nice looking pattern stitch; and with bulky yarn this project knits up in no time.  I put a contrasting stripe in the center, but let your imagination run wild for your Cover Up.  Get the needles moving for the baby or toddler in your life – it’s always nice to be able to give a gift that is not some plastic toy!

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