When I bought a new car, I wasn’t pleased to discover that the straps on my old visor organizer didn’t fit on the new visors. I thought to myself, what a great opportunity to find a new one that has the features I want! A cargo net for a pen and spare charging cable and parking garage tickets! A zippered pocket for registration and insurance cards and an emergency ten dollar bill! Well, guess what. I found cargo net organizers, I found pocket organizers, but I couldn’t find both in one. WHATEVER COULD I, A HUMBLE DRIVER, DO?!???
Oh, yeah. I could sew my own.
And so can you!
This car visor organizer tutorial requires basic sewing machine skills. You should have some familiarity with zipper installation, edgestitching, and binding.
materials:
- 1/4 yard upholstery-weight fabric (you can use quilting cotton, but you should reinforce the pocket piece with woven fusible interfacing if you do so)
- 1/4 yard double-sided fusible ultra-firm stabilizer (such as Pellon 72F Peltex)
- 7″ nylon coil zipper (or longer)
- 2 yards 3/8″ braided elastic
- 1/2 yard 3/4″ non-roll elastic
- 1 yard of EITHER extra wide double fold bias tape OR handmade binding (either 2 1/4″ or 2 1/2″)
- Basic sewing supplies: sewing machine, iron, thread, clips or very heavy duty pins
Preparation:
- Measure your car visor to determine what size organizer you’d like. (My Honda Accord accommodates a 6″ x 10″ organizer.)
- Cut your fabric into three rectangles in the dimensions of the finished organizer.
- Cut the stabilizer into a rectangle in the dimensions of the finished organizer.
- Following manufacturer’s instructions, press one fabric rectangle onto the stabilizer. Repeat with the other side of the stabilizer. This is the body of the organizer.
- Cut the remaining fabric rectangle 1 1/2″ from the right side. These two pieces will form the pocket.
- Cut two pieces of the wide elastic to the height of your organizer. These will loop around your car visor to hold the organizer in place.
The Pocket:
- Place the zipper face down on the right side of the larger pocket piece. Stitch in place. Press the fabric away from the zipper and edgestitch. Attach the 1 1/2″ fabric strip to the other side of the zipper, then press and edgestitch in same manner. Open the zipper pull to the middle of the zipper and bar tack close to both edges of the pocket. Trim the zipper ends to be even with the fabric.
- Fold the pocket piece in half, wrong sides together. Press. Align the raw edges of the pocket with the right side of the body. Clip in place.
THE CARGO NET:
- Mark horizontal elastic placement 1/2″ from top, along pocket fold and on opposite raw edge. Repeat every inch for the width of the body. Measure the distance between the pocket fold and the opposite raw edge, then add 1/2″ to find the horizontal elastic length. Cut one piece of narrow elastic for each mark. Use clips to attach the elastic pieces to the raw edge, tucking the other ends under the pocket.
- Edgestitch the pocket fold, holding each elastic end in place with your fingers as it goes under the presser foot.
- Mark vertical elastic placement 1/2″ from raw edge at top and bottom. Repeat every inch until reaching the pocket fold. Cut one piece of narrow elastic for each mark to fit the height of the organizer body. Use clips to attach the vertical elastic pieces. Weave each piece over and under the horizontal elastic, alternating the weave to form a net.
- Machine baste close to the edge around the entire body.
finishing
- Take the organizer body out to your car to check the appropriate placement for the elastic straps, taking into consideration mirrors or lights on the back side of the visor that you might not want to block. (My straps are placed 1″ from each side.)
- Clip the wide elastic pieces to the back at whatever distance from the short edges you determined will work for your car visor. Machine baste the ends.
- Add bias tape or binding by machine to finish. First I used a zigzag stitch with thread to match this narrow binding, then I tried a straight stitch with a contrasting thread on premade bias tape.
