I love my Sola pram! It’s cute, compact, light, easy to use, is suitable from birth and has lasted well with heavy daily use (it’s also my shopping trolley) even surviving the London snow*. The only thing I wish it has was a shade over the window. When Roman is trying to take a nap, the sun is usually peeking in through the window and I have to cover the pram in blankets…ugly! But no more!

I made up a little shade that snaps on to cover the window. It was pretty straightforward and does a great job of keeping out that cheeky sun so that my cheeky son can get some sleep.

I didn’t take any photos as I was going, but here’s a rundown of how I did it.

Window Shade for Mamas & Papas Sola Pram

You’ll need:
20 x 85 cm piece main fabric (I used black cotton drill)
20 x 85 cm piece backing fabric (I used green polar fleece)
2 snaps or pieces of velcro
Tailors chalk

Fold the fabric in half along the short side and press to mark the mid point of the fabric. Put the pram seat in the upright position and put the hood right down.

Drape the fabric over the window, using the line to centre it. I used the seat recliner button as my guide for the centre. Pat the fabric down flat and using the tailors chalk follow the curve of the window but 2cm further out to make a seam allowance and to make the shade slightly bigger than the window. You only need to do this on one side of the fabric.

Fold the fabric in half and then cut along the lines you drew. Drape the fabric over the hood to check that it covers the window nicely.

Place the fabric over your piece of backing fabric, right sides together. I like to roughly cut out the backing piece and then trim it to size after sewing the pieces together.

Sew together using an 8mm seam. I use the edge of the machine foot as my guide. Leave a hole about 6cm long for turning your work. Clip corners, turn right way out and press. Top stitch all the way around 5mm in from the edge. The top stitching will close up the opening.

To fit the snaps, you need to un-clip the hood one side at a time so you can get your snap pliers in there. The picture above shows the clip that undoes the hood. Add snaps to the corners of the shade. Lay the shade over the window and line it up, then add the other half of the snaps to the matching point on the hood. I set mine back slightly as this was the easiest place to add the snaps and makes the shade nice and taut. You can see my placement in the pictures below. Snap on the shade and off you go!

Here you can see the shade over the window, and then pulled back to let the sun shine in!

And here’s how it looks from the inside. Quite an improvement!

If you want to make one of these and any of this is unclear, please send me an email.

Tips:
– The cotton drill I bought is a blue-black, whereas the pram hood is more of a red-black so they don’t match that well. Make sure you match your blacks up if this will annoy you, or use a different colour or print for the main fabric.
– Put the brakes on the pram when shaping your fabric and adding the snaps, it makes life much easier.
– The whole hood doesn’t need to be removed to add the snaps, just un-clip it from the pram as you add the snaps on each side.
– The polar fleece I used for the backing provides enough friction for it to stay put, even with only 2 snaps on the corners.

*As much as I would love it, no one has paid me to say these things about my pram. It was purchased with my own money and because I liked it. And I would definitely buy it again!