Tutorial: Baby Bjorn Little Potty Cover

The lovely Emily, of The EC Store, has given me permission to share my method of making potty covers for the Baby Bjorn Little Potty. We practice Elimination Communication with our babies and, while we love it, a plastic potty can be very chilly on a toasty warm little bottom!  (A potty is especially chilly when it is the one we keep in the van and the month happens to be January.)  While it is extremely easy to make a potty cozy, if you would like one and aren’t into sewing, please check out the covers at The EC Store, called Potty Turtlenecks.

Let’s get started.

All you will need is:

• a piece of fabric 12″ x 38″; you will want to use something that will not absorb wetness from occasional splashes.  Polyester fleece is a great choice, but other fabrics such as minky (which I used for the tutorial) will also work.  I imagine a nice wool interlock or jersey would also work well.
• about a yard of 3/8″ elastic
• something to thread elastic through, such as a bodkin or a safety pin
• sewing machine
• serger (optional)

1.  Gather your materials and cut your fabric to size. The stretch should go across the fabric widthwise.

2.  Optionally, serge or zig-zag the long ends of the fabric. This is really unnecessary with polyester fleece, but if you are a perfectionist, please go ahead.

3.  Serge, zig-zag or straight-stitch the short ends of the fabric together, right-sides facing each other.

You now have a tube that looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Turn up one open end 1″ and press/pin in place. (Pressing doesn’t work really well with this type of fabric, but it might help to keep things from shifting.)  You will have the wrong side of the fabric facing out and be turning it up so that the wrong sides are together for that 1″ strip.

5.  Repeat for the other open end.

6.  Straight stitch around the pinned ends, leaving about a 1″ gap for threading the elastic. I like to stitch with my presser foot along the edge of the fabric (where my serging is).  This leaves a nice casing for the elastic.

Your project will now look like this:

7.  Measure out a 15″ piece of elastic. Don’t cut it, yet; just mark it.  Take your bodkin or safety pin and thread your elastic through a few inches (or attach the pin to the end).  By the way, a bodkin looks like this:

8.  Thread the elastic through the casing on one end. Use the extra length of elastic (since you haven’t cut it, yet) to help you straighten everything out and then pull it up until you get to your mark.

9.  Cut the elastic at your mark and overlap it at this point.

10.  Using a zig-zag stitch, sew these ends together.

11.  Pull the fabric to make the elastic disappear inside the casing and disperse the gathers a bit. Repeat with the other side.  You don’t need to bother sewing up the little openings, but if you really want to, go ahead.

12.  Trim your thread ends.

And…you are done!  Your potty cover should now look like this:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I’d love to hear if you make a potty cozy from my tutorial.  Please leave me a comment and/or link to your blog.  I would also ask that you don’t sell cozies made from this tutorial out of respect for Emily of The EC Store, whose original I used for my ‘pattern’.