Redoing the bassinet - Adding the canopy

Alright, so far my project is just a boring brown, but maybe with this next step we can add a little color, and a little more functionality.  It's time to start thinking about adding the canopy, or is it a hood?  I'm not sure.  Anyway, in the original cover I have the canopy is permanently attached.  I suppose this is fine, and I could have done that with mine, but I have three thoughts.

First, is the canopy really going to get all that dirty?  I kind of doubt it, I mean I may want to wash it now and then but I can't see it getting too much on it, but the part that the baby sleeps in will, and if I decide that I want 2 bassinet covers I could make the second one cheaper by just making the base part that the baby sleeps in, and not making 2 hoods.  Second, I've read all sorts of peoples complaints that the canopy gets in the way and that they don't use it.  I'm not sure if I'll feel this way, but if I do it's not a problem to take it off.  Third, I want my bassinet to be a little on the boyish side, because I'm having another boy, but what it the ultrasound is wrong, or what if I have another baby in the future that ends up being a girl?  Well, with this plan it really would be no big deal to just make another canopy.

Okay, so first, supplies.

I started with 2/3 yd of a 44" cotton fabric (and found that I only really needed about 1/2yd, but we'll use more later!)
Coordinating thread
Velcro
The plastic hoops harvested from the original cover

Now to sew it, and the best part about this is compared to the last part I bet it's going to be easy!

First, cut 2 rectangles 8x36" and 2 4" squares of your cotton fabric.  On the first rectange take one long edge and put a 1/2" hem on it to finish the edge nicely.

Now to figure out a channel for the hoop on the other one.  On the other rectangle of fabric fold and press the edge over 1 inch.  Then open this press job and fold the raw edge to the point or your iron crease.  Press this line in.  Refold up to the original crease.  Now, if you look at this there should be a 1/2" channel that your plastic hoop will fit perfectly in, the only thing is we need to figure out how to access it when all is said and done.  Now, what I here was a little creative, and not the easiest way to do it, but I'll tell you anyway.  I basically then unfolded my creases, and marked off about 2.75" from the end where a slit could go that I could use, then I sewed a box around it and cut the slits on each side the folded my creases back to the original position and stitched.  In hind sight, a button hole would have been a better choice because now I have to make some little straps to velcro over the holes to hide them!

Now the tricky part.  Take the 3 rectangles and sew the long raw edges together with a 1/2" seam.  Press the seam open.  Now fold your fabric over right sides together 1/2" from the seam towards the side with the holes for the hoop, press this in.  Now flip the fabric over and fold it back until the raw seam on the back is just covered.  This will do two things, it will cover the ugly seam and create a channel to put in the other plastic hoop.  Before sewing it should look like this:

And here's where our channel is going to be:

To access the channel this time we are going to be smart and add in button holes 2.75 " from each end, making sure to only go through one layer of fabric.  Then we are going to stitch the sides of the channel by sewing on the crease that covers the raw seam and the other side of the channel just over 1/2" from this, near the seam from putting together the long pieces.  It should now look like this with the button holes on the reverse side:

Now finish the raw edges with 1/2" hems.

To make the little straps to cover the first set of holes I made I simply took one of the 4" squares and folded right sides together, then stitched a 1/2" seam.  Then turn right side out, finish one of the rough edges by folding it over twice and stitching.  Make two of these and then attach the unfinished side of the cover strap to the right side of the cover just past the channel for the rod (see the picture below!)  Then add some velcro to both the cover strap and the wrong side of the canopy to close it.

Now there is one problem.  When you try to fit the hood to the bassinet you will discover that the width of the canopy is quite a bit more than the curve on the bassinet that we are trying to fit it to.  My canopy fabric is currently about 34", but as you can see in the picture the length of my curve is only about 26", so things aren't going to fit so well.  We can fix this though, by adding 5 1.5" pleats to the back of the canopy edge.  I placed mine so that they were evenly distributed on the canopy.  After that it fits great!



Now we just need to add a way to attach it to the bassinet cover.  Originally I planned on using snaps, but after more thought I decided that if one came off it could be a potential choking hazard, so that probably wasn't the best idea.  I decided to go with more velcro.  All you have to do is pin on the hood and figure out where you want to attach velcro!  After that you're done and have something that looks like this:

Nope, the kid in the background won't be sleeping in it, but he's sure curious about what baby brother is going to do with it!