Toy Car Sto and Go Tutorial

My daughter loves cars. So I have been looking around online for a fun way for her to play/store them. With all my searching I never could quite find what I was looking for. I decided I should just try and make up my own pattern. I'm creative (at least I think I am - sometimes). Our impromptu trip home to see family was just the excuse I needed to get my butt in gear. So with a little thought and finagling, this Toy Car Sto and Go was born. Outside are pockets to store your cars in and a nice big handle for those little tykes to carry around.Inside is a flannel board with roads to drive the cars on.
My daughter absolutely loved this on our 30 hour drive home. She wanted to play with it over and over. We each have our own car which she can correctly identify and we will drive along the roads with her. She really liked to crash the cars. It was so fun to see that she liked my silly creation. Hopefully your kids will as well. If you would like the tutorial on how to make this, please continue reading.

SUPPLIES:
3/4 yard Main Fabric
1/3 Accent Fabric
1/2 yard white Felt
Warm and Natural Batting

2 pieces of foam board measuring 10" X 14" (buy one large board and cut to size)

2-3 sheets black felt
1 1/2" of sew on velcro
1 yard of 1/2" elastic

marking pencil

1 sheet photo transfer paper (optional - see variations at bottom of post)

Now cut your pieces:

BODY
15.5" x 22" - cut 1 each of the main fabric, batting, and felt

TABS
4" x 5" - cut 2 of main fabric

HANDLES
13" x 4" - cut 2 of accent fabric

or you can use 2 pieces of 1.5" ribbon cut 13" long

POCKETS
11.5" x 22.5" - cut 1 of accent fabric

Now the assembly:

If you are going to sew your handles, please follow these instructions. If you are going to use the ribbon then obviously you won't need to see them together. Take your 13X4 strip of fabric and fold in half lengthwise with right sides together. Sew a 1/2" seam down the long raw edge. Repeat with other strip. Set aside for now

Take one of your tab pieces and set it down so it is 5 wide and 4 tall. Take your 1.5" piece of velcro (the soft side) and pin it down 1" from the top and centered along the 5" side.

Stitch the velcro down. Place the other tab piece on top with right sides together and sew a 1/2" seam along 3 sides. Leave the bottom 5" side open. After sewing, clip the corners.

Turn your 2 handles and tab pieces inside out and iron well.

Now top stitch your handles and tab piece about 1/8" from the edge. Set these pieces aside for now.

I ended up stitching 4 lines of toptstiching on my handles just for fun. You can do this if you would like to but you don't need to.

Now take your pocket piece and finish the two long raw edges, either with your serger or a zig zag stitch on your sewing machine.

Fold down 1" from the edge and iron.

Repeat with other side.

Top stitch about 3/4" down from each edge. There needs to be enough room for your elastic to go through this opening.

Now take your marking pencil and draw a line 3.5" from the edge.

Draw another line 3" away from that line. Keep drawing lines 3" apart until you reach the other side of your pocket piece. You should have drawn 6 lines with 4" left over at the other end.

Now draw a line vertically across your pocket piece right down the center.

Line up your pocket piece with the center of your main body piece and pin along one edge - making sure that the side with 4" extra is at the bottom and that you are pinning the side with 3.5" extra. (Make sure that the extra 4" side is at the bottom - when applicable - for the rest of the tutorial. This will also be the edge that you are hand stitching closed.)

You will be gathering these pocket pieces up so there is room for the cars to fit inside. You will need to measure 2.5" away from the edge. This is where the first pocket will be sewn down.

Now match up the line you drew previously with this 2.5" measurement. Pin in place.

Now measure 2" away from that line and pin your next pocket line in place.

Repeat every 2" until all the pockets are pinned down. Also, pin the edge of the pocket piece to the edge of the main body piece. It should look something like this.

Now you will be sewing down all your pocket dividers. Be sure to start at the top stitching line for your elastic and not above it. You will need to string the elastic through that gap and won't be able to if it is sewn down.

Stitch along all 6 pocket lines.

Also stitch down the center line, pinching and gathering the pocket pieces as you go. This doesn't need to be accurate. Just make sure you get the extra bulk all squished down inbetween the pocket sections. Now we will be attaching our handles and tab pieces. (Please use the measurements that I am writing down and not what is visible in the pictures. It was a little off when I sewed it together and am correcting the measurements but obviously couldn't retake the pictures after it was all sewn together.) Measure 4" down from the top and place one side of the handle piece. Pin in place. Measure 4" up from the bottom and pin the other side of the handle piece in place. Repeat with the other handle piece on the other side. Also, pin down the tab piece, velcro side up, centered between one of the handles. Stitch in place using a 1/4" seam allowance.

On the side without the tab piece, you will be stitching down the rough side of your velcro piece. Pin in place 1.5" down and centered between the handle. Sew down.

Once your pockets are all stitched down and your handles are sewn in place, you will now be attaching the elastic. Hook a safety pin to one end of your elastic and thread through the opening.

Leave about 1" of elastic at each end and stitch in place. Repeat with other side. Your finished top piece should now look like this.

This next step I didn't do, but would recommend it to help keep your cars in better. I would stretch the elastic out and pin right above each pocket dividing line. Then stitch over the elastic for each section. This should help keep the elastic snug and help keep those cars inside. However, it does make it a little more tricky to get the cars in and out for the younger kids. To help with this you could only stitch down every other pocket piece. It's up to you. Whether you do this step or not, it should not mess with the overall functionality of this toy.

Now take your black felt sheets and cut strips 2" wide.

Place them on your white flannel piece and arrange them in any pattern you would like. Pin in place.

Stitch down your roads along both edges. I also stitched down the center of the roads with yellow thread. This is optional but looks cool. I also rounded the corners on my roads. Once again, purely optional.

Now we will be sewing everything together. The batting is on the bottom, next is the flannel road side up, and last is the main body piece with the wrong side up.

Pin along 3 sides leaving the bottom open (remember to make sure that the pocket with 4" extra is at the bottom). Sew 1/2" seam along all 3 sides.

Trim corners and turn inside out. Press edges well.

Pin the bottom edge closed. Make sure everything is laying flat and pin along the middle seam of the pockets. Now sew down the dividing line right down the middle of your pockets. Your main body piece should now be sewn in two sections.

Place one foam board piece in each side. Make sure you slide it between the batting and the flannel. This might be a snug fit, but work with it and it will go.

Now we need to stitch the bottom closed. To start, you will fold the flannel over the board,

Then fold the main fabric down about 1/2" and pin in place.

Repeat along the whole bottom side. (You may need to undo some of the stitches from your diving line once you reach the middle so that you can fold the raw edges under.)

Now take a needle and thread and whip stitch the opening closed.

Put your cars inside and you are done! Now let your little one enjoy playing with this super sweet Toy Car Sto and Go.

***Variations: For older children, you could not stitch the roads down but just cut out different lengths of road pieces. That way they could make up their own road layouts every time they play. You could also find some cute pictures of houses, stop signs, yield signs, people, lakes, etc. and print them off on the photo transfer paper. (Make sure you place all the pictures on one page - like in Microsoft Word or Photoshop - before printing them out.) Then they could place them on the white flannel and make their own scenes when they play. Put roads and other pieces in a ziplock bag (or make your own bag) and store inside your carrier.

And that is my tutorial. Hopefully it made sense. Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them. Happy sewing!