The family is ordained of God. Families are central to our Heavenly Father’s plan here on earth and through the eternities. After Adam and Eve were joined in marriage, the scripture reads, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” In our day prophets and apostles have declared, “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.”
This commandment has not been forgotten or set aside in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We express deep gratitude for the enormous faith shown by husbands and wives (especially our wives) in their willingness to have children. When to have a child and how many children to have are private decisions to be made between a husband and wife and the Lord. These are sacred decisions—decisions that should be made with sincere prayer and acted on with great faith. -Elder Neil L. Anderson
(A guest post by my sweet sister, Elisabeth Monson)
All you will need is two colors of fabric (or, if you don’t want to make the bias tape, you can get that instead of a second color of fabric), very thin quilting batting, and some Velcro (roughly 16 inches).
1. The first thing you do is cut out four rectangles (for two strap covers). I had to tinker with the size, and eventually for the infant car seat, they ended up being 4”x7”. This size makes the strap roomy enough to easily adjust position. If you want yours to stay in place really well, I would make it a little shorter, though no less than 4”x6 ½”. Cut out two rectangles of the batting to match your fabric ones.
2. Next, pin the fabric on either side of the batting with right sides of the fabric facing out. I only photographed one of the covers as I made them. Naturally, you follow the same steps for both.
3. This is where I decided to make my bias tape. If you buy yours, you can skip from now until step number 7.
On the bias of the fabric, cut a strip that is 1 ½ inches wide and long enough to go around your squares comfortably. My fabric wasn’t long enough to make around both my squares, so I made two separate strips. (Note: I also didn’t have enough fabric to cut on the bias, so I cut my pieces along the grain, and it turned out just splendidly. So don’t stress if you don’t cut on the bias.)
4. Iron your piece (or pieces) in half.
5. Next, open your newly ironed strip and fold each outside edge to the center. Iron them in place.
6. Iron in half again.
Now your strips should look more or less like store-bought bias tape!
7. Back to your poofy, pinned rectangles: Cut Velcro (both sides for each of your covers-to-be) to match the width of your rectangles (4”).
8. Stitch all the way around each one at 1/4” seam allowance.
9. Clip off the seam allowance all the way around to be closer to 1/8”. This makes all layers a uniform length, and makes it easier to get your bias tape around it. (In the picture, you can see the difference between the original seam allowance and the clipped, which will hopefully give you a good idea of how much of yours you want to clip off.)
10. Pin your Velcro into place at each end of the rectangles, on opposing sides (such that they stick together when folded in thirds). Put the edge of the Velcro just past the seam you made.
11. Stitch all the way around the Velcro on each end.
This is what they should look like together.
12. Pin bias tape into place, by straddling it around your clipped edges, making sure that the entire seam is covered on the front and back.
13. Sew all the way around until you see you are coming close to where you began. Once you have a good idea of how much more of the bias tape you’ll need, clip it off, leaving enough to fold the last raw edge down. Continue sewing around until you have reached the, now folded, end of your bias tape.
14. The finished product should look like this!
