DIY umbrella cover {black and white ikat fabric}

I tackled a pretty big DIY a few weeks ago and just finally finished it.  I have one of those classic, plastic Little Tikes outside picnic table for my kids.  It is an essential for us during the summer so that they can enjoy dinner in the yard, have a craft space outside etc.  I just couldn't handle staring at the maroon and khaki umbrella cover.  It just so isn't us!  It completely conflicted with the decor we have going in our outside space.  Now, our yard is no where near done, it's actually getting an overhaul in the coming weeks, but I just couldn't look out my slider door and see that "not so cute" umbrella anymore.  This is when I came up with the idea...why not just make a new cover for it!

I started my search for an outdoor fabric that fit with our aesthetic and found Tempo indoor/outdoor Aztec black at fabric.com

I'm interested to see how the color holds up to being in the direct sunlight.

I then started the process of creating the cover...

To be honest, I was just winging it, so if you attempt this at home you may very well have a better way to do this. (But this was my journey to our new cover)

I made a rough pattern of one of the sections on the existing cover.  There are 8 total that I cut out and labeled in consecutive order.

Thank goodness for a large, open floor area.

Then came the process of hemming each section.  I can definitely say the day I did the sewing my sewing machine was on "her cycle" cause she was a testy one.  I'm sure it had something to do with the weight of the fabric, but her and I were not friends.  Thankfully we made it through and we are back working as a team. =)

What followed was a whole lot of straight line sewing.  I sewed each section to each other, following my number labels which I think just made me feel like I was following the correct order. (Not sure it actually mattered in the real construction of the cover)

Then after all 8 sections were sewn together I needed to add "tabs" to the underside of the cover that would help with holding it down to the frame.  So I just used little 1 1/2" strips of 1/4" elastic and manually sewed them to the underside.

 See that horribly messy stitching....YIKES...oh well, not claiming to be perfect here.

I attached all the tabs to the underside and screwed back on the top cap and the caps to the ends of the frame and voila...

Now I may just have to spray paint those maroon bench seats!