Sewing for Buttercup

My poor car, Buttercup the Volkswagen Beetle, is in sad shape right now.  She is 10 years old, and her parts and pieces are either starting to show a lot of wear-and-tear, or falling completely apart.  I plan to keep Buttercup until she dies, so I have decided to slowly fix up her innards.  After all, it's what's on the inside that counts, right? ;)

Project no. 1: New Shift Boot!

I ordered the fabric for this project waaaaay back in the spring, and just got to it this past weekend.  I definitely waited until the last bit of my summer break to get it done!   

As you can see, Buttercup's shift boot was in a very dismal state.  It had gotten so worn and stained over the years that I couldn't make it look good no matter how much I cleaned it.  

Removing the shift boot from the shift knob was a bit trickier than I anticipated, but with a little help from Davy I was able to get everything taken apart.  

The boot was stapled at the bottom to a rectangular piece of plastic.  This is the piece that fits down into the plastic mid-section of the car (I know there is a name for that section, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is) (8/8/11: The center console.  Duh!).  The staples were quite difficult to remove, and I ended up leaving a few of them in. 

The next step was to rip the stitches and make a pattern from the old boot pieces.  Pretty simple. :)  (Don't those old pieces look gross? Blech!)

Unfortunately, my sewing machine is having a very bad week.  It desperately needs a good cleaning and tune-up, and has refused to sew anything for me no matter how nicely I ask.  Thus I was obliged to sew this baby together by hand, which was no small feat, considering the thickness of the fabric and the fact that my tendinitis has been acting up a lot lately. 

I guess I was a little distracted and put out with my sewing machine, and forgot to take pictures of the actual construction of the boot.  Alas!  Here are some pictures of the finished product:

Isn't it cute???

I used a pretty pink buttonhole twist for the top-stitching.  It's hard to see in these pictures, but take my word for it, it looks nice!

The most difficult part was stretching the fabric back onto the rectangular plastic piece.  That took a while.  Oh, and I definitely put it on backwards a few times and had to take it all apart and fix it.  Ah well!  I think it turned out pretty great. 

So Buttercup feels a little better about herself now, and I feel a little better about her too.

~Bessie