How to make a Stroller Snuggle Sack

Ira has a thing for stroller walks - like a really big thing.  He hates being cooped up inside, and he will beg to go over to the front door and at least look out.  If you get the stroller out, he starts breathing fast and waving his arms like a Jack Russell terrier who just ate 15 pixie sticks. 

But with the weather getting cold, it's getting hard to take him out as often as he wants to go.  Because if there's one thing Ira hates, it's mittens.  And also being cold.  So we have a Catch-22 - the mittens and the hat and the clothes make him nuts, but he wants to go outside, and he hates being cold.  We usually wrap a blanket around him, but then he kicks it down in all of his excitement and you're rolling it through sidewalk smut or running over it and almost dumping Ira out into the street.

I saw a pin on Pinterest for a stroller blanket, but it just linked to a website where you could buy them, which was sold out.  But I started thinking...come on, how hard could it be?  It's just fleece!  Every 12 year old girl in the world can make a knotted fleece blanket - why can't we make a stroller snuggle sack out of fleece?  After searching high and low on the interwebs, we couldn't find a pattern or a how-to page, just some pictures of things that weren't quite what we wanted.  So I bring the great how-to-make-a-stroller-blanket tutorial, courtesy of my mom's excellent execution.

First, I highly recommend picking a fleece that doesn't have an "up side" and a "down side". I love the skulls and they face both ways so we didn't need to worry about which way was up!

You're going to be making a sort of sleeping bag for your stroller that is seen halfway up so that little toes don't kick off blankets and get cold.

Fold your fabric in half so that it's still long but half as wide - "hot dog style" as I would tell my 6th graders. Then, turn it inside out and

sew the edges together so that you're hiding the "wrong side." 

You will end up with a nice edge like this one. Thanks for your sewing and modeling skills, Mimi!

Now you need to sew a box around the top so that your stroller snuggie will stay on the back of the stroller seat. Put your fabric on the chair and leave 4-5 inches or so hanging over the back.

Then you just sew one line on each side of you snuggie so that it fits over the back of your seat, sort of looking like the closed end of a pillowcase.

Leave your snuggle sack on the stroller and fold the bottom part up to where you'd like the top of the blanket to hit.  I recommend leaving enough room so that it can be snapped up higher when your baby is taller, but still leaving enough length in the foot part so that he can use it when his legs are longer too.

We folded ours up and then sewed up to about ten inches from the bottom, so that the sewn part is just over the legs. We then attached snaps on the upper part to make it easier to get baby in and out, or leave it unsnapped and just have a lap blanket for warmer days. 

Finally, make sure your snuggle sack is snugly over the stroller seat just like you want it, feel for your stroller straps, and cut holes for them. 

Then either use your sewing machine to zig zag around the holes for reinforcement, or hand sew around them.

Then put baby in your stroller and get your tail out there in the cold!