Make a fixator cover

Making a fixator with limited sewing skills... all pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them for full view of details (don't mind my sloppy sewing lines, I am NOT a professional!)

Step one - measure around the rings of the fixator to find your largest one, and make sure you have enough material to cover it after adding velcro. Measure length also... You want to add about an inch or two to the measurements to allow room for seams, overlapping, etc.

To make things VERY easy, I had a pair of man's cammo pants laying around. I took the widest part of the leg right up at top of thigh through the knee area and found it would cover our fixator nicely. You can also buy material and cut to your size.

Step two - for mine, I used a seam ripper to open up the inseam where the pant leg was joined, after cutting out the needed length. Then, I sewed the seam back up on the ripped side so it would not fray.

Step three - I folded over the top and bottom edges about a half inch and sewed them close to the folded edge, creating a pocket to thread through a shoelace or other string.

Step four - I sewed several one inch strips of velcro on one side of the fixator, with the rough plastic edges facing AWAY from the body. First I pinned them with straight pins near the left hand edge, so I had room to sew along the right hand edge with the sewing machine. Then I removed the pins and sewed the left hand side.

Step five - Then I lined up the soft velcro side with the existing velcro and pinned into place, and sewed using the same method.

Step six - thread shoelaces through the top and bottom (easiest to pin a safety pin to the end of the shoelace to help feed it through).

Then, you can bring the fixator cover from underneath the fixator to the front, tie top and bottom and close velcro, and you are all set :)

Outside view of cover with strings and velcro added

Inside of fixator cover

velcro all lined up

Finished product

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Okay, now after you see all you need to do to MAKE a cover... I found this lovely tip on a fixator support group site that recommended you look up Polar Buff on the internet and there you can buy a lovely cover that comes in a zillion colors and patterns, available as a plain buff or with polar fleece attached to one end to warm up your knee in the winter. I got two, this plain one showing and one with the polar fleece top. The plain one was $20 and the polar buff was $28 from Planet Buff. I probably would NOT have gone through the effort to make one had I seen this first, haha...

One caution though, the polar fleece is VERY stretchy (anyone who has seen Survivor knows, they wear them on their heads, as tube tops, as skirts, etc.) but the first couple weeks the leg may be too sore to even stretch that over the fixator. We didn't use a cover until about 4 weeks postop, because the only time we went out was to the hospital for PT and I didn't CARE if people found it freaky looking. It wasn't until Billy returned to school that I decided to spare the little kiddies the sight of the pins into the leg, LOL...

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Billy with his buff covering his fixator

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