Grocery Cart Cover

With a little girl who is getting more mobile by the day, I knew I needed to get one of these things at some point. Piper is no longer content to sit in her car seat while I shop and HAS to be sitting up, facing out and looking around. I started shopping for one a few weeks back and was blown away by how much these things cost! The ones I was looking at were between $65 and $85 and they didn't even have the right features I was looking for. Additionally, the manufacture would claim that it would fit "any size shopping cart - even warehouse shopping carts" but many of the customer comments/reviews said that it wouldn't stretch far enough to cover the whole cart.

I found a McCall's pattern (#5721 for those interested) and waited until they went on sale somewhere. I finally found them at Hobby Lobby for $.99 and went to pick it up. A friend gave me tons of her left over fabric a while back since she was cleaning out her sewing room. To cut costs further I decided to use some fabric I already had. She gave me some that were gender specific and others that weren't and decided to go with the cute puppy dog print since it would be fine for either boys or girls. It took me about 2 hours to put it together and I was so excited with the way it turned out. I added some features and took away others that I didn't want and was able to make exactly what I was wanting. I've got about $9 wrapped up in it with supplies and that's all. Piper and I went shopping the other day and I used it for the first time. I think the puppies on the fabric were more entertaining than her toys that I attached to it!

It does in fact have two places for legs, you just can't tell from this angle. I used two kitchen chairs for the model;-)

I wanted a bigger pocket on the back for toys/wallet/muchies, etc.

I wanted three loops for toys and I wanted to add my own buckle so I didn't have to use the nasty ones attached to the carts.

I still made it reversible (like all of the other ones for sale) and made it big enough to fit on a Sams or Costco cart as well as your average grocery store cart or even restaurant high chair.

The best part: it folds back on itself in the big pocket in the back and the buckle and strap act as the handle! I love this thing! Thank you McCall for helping to make this so much easier for me to create:-)