How to Make a Waterproof Hood for a Pushchair

Boy 4 hates the raincover on his buggy. It doesn’t matter if it is pouring with rain. In his 1 year old boy’s brain, he would rather get wet than have his view slightly obscured by a transparent piece of plastic that will keep him dry and snug in his buggy. He hates it so much that if he so much as suspects that the raincover is even covering the hood, he will scream the place down.

Before anybody starts, yes, he can walk, and he often does. Yet sometimes it is better that he rides in the buggy so that we can be sure of getting to where we need to be promptly, in one piece and not tearing our hair out. Or soaking wet from being in the rain for half an hour instead of 5 minutes.

Being the kind of person who likes a challenge, especially the kind that involves making stuff, I set about finding a solution so that my precious little boy stays dry in his buggy without screaming his little head off.

One possible solution was to make a hood out of some kind of waterproof material that would go over the buggy’ s hood and possibly stick out a bit further to keep the little person inside drier.

So here is how to make a waterproof hood!

In order to make a waterproof hood for Boy 4’s buggy, I acquired a shower curtain, a wire coat hanger and 5 m of bias binding.

Having done this, my first task was to make a pattern. I actually had to do this twice because I lost the first one I made and only found it in the pile of unfinished projects after I had already made a second one. So annoying! And also a reason why tidying up is a Bad Thing.

To make the pattern, I removed the hood from the buggy and drew around the top part. This was trickier than I was expecting, so to make it easier I pinned the paper to the hood, folded it round the hood, then drew around it. Making the bit at the back was easier as this bit was quite loose anyway.

The hood on Boy 4’s little umbrella folding buggy is quite small as well as being only showerproof, so the waterproof hood needed an extra piece at the front to make it bigger. To do this, I used the pattern piece from the top of the hood and traced the front, then drew a curved line for the front of the extra piece.

Next I cut the bits out of the shower curtain. I didn’t use pins because I didn’t want to make holes in it. I considered using tape but I decided I couldn’t be bothered to look for it so I drew round the pattern with a pen instead.

I folded the pieces in half to make sure they were symmetrical and even on both sides.

After cutting the bits out, I joined them using the bias binding. The raincovers I have inspected are joined together in the same way. I enclosed the edges inside the bias binding, pinned it, then sewed.

To ensure that the hood was a decent fit and wouldn’t blow away if it was a bit breezy, I added some darts to the back section.

The last thing I needed to do was to sew the remaining bias binding around the outside edge and attach the wire coat hanger to the front edge so that the hood would hold its shape.

To do this, I used the bias binding on the front edge as casing. I pinned the bias binding to the front and sewed, keeping as close to the open edge as possible. I only sewed the bias tape onto the front section, leaving the rest free so that I could sew it onto the rest of the hood once I’d sorted out the wire.

Then I unwound the coat hanger, checked how much of it I needed and cut off what I didn’t need. As it turned out, all I had to cut off was the hook, which also saved me the job of straightening it out. I wiggled it through the casing until it was threaded right the way through the front section. There were a couple of dodgy bits where the casing was too narrow, but this was easily solved by unpicking a few stitches.

All that was left to do was sew the remaining bias binding to the rest of the hood.

I did have plans to add a loop of elastic and a button so I could attach it to the pushchair, but as the waterproof hood was wedged quite firmly between the original hood and the handles, I haven’t bothered.

Hopefully combined with a puddle jumping suit and a pair of wellies, the waterproof hood should be enough to keep Boy 4 dry when it rains without him screaming!