I recently had the opportunity to stitch up a project for a young mom who is friends with my daughter here in town. She has a little guy that she still puts in the “Sleep Sacks” for night time. He’s one of those little boys who is growing faster in length than around. She had had several of the sleep sacks from Pottery Barn Kids, but their sizing doesn’t go one more level to meet her needs. So…….she asked Delicate Stitches to help out.
Though I carry some lovely Pima cotton knits, she had wanted some prints since I only have pink and white solids and less appealing boy prints. Though NOW I have added some great prints from Monaluna Organic Cottons, I didn’t have those at the time. So I had to go off to my local JoAnn’s store to see what might be available. Finding “boy appropriate” knit prints can be a challenge! Lots of pink, purple and flowers!! But I did succeed. They were not as heavy as the sleep sack sample she gave me to measure, so I opted to purchase some light weight white knit to line them.
I used my pattern by “My Favorite Things”, the Hushabye Baby sleep sack pattern. I had to make some adjustments because the Hushaby Baby pattern uses velcro tab closure at the shoulders and she wanted the zipper opening down the front. So……off to finding a lightweight separating zipper online. But I was successful.
One thing to know———–WASH YOUR COTTON KNITS BEFORE CUTTING OUT THE PATTERN! I did know this, but was not prepared for what occurred. My pattern called for 1 yard of the fabric and that is what I purchased. That would have been more that what I was going to need for the new length that was desired for the Sleep Sacks. BUT when I washed the fabrics they shrunk over 5 inches! There was NO way I was going to be able to make the fabric work for the pattern. I took all the prints back to JoAnn’s and they kindly allowed me to have the prints recut to a 1 yard + 1/8 yard more of fabric at NO CHARGE. So back home to repeat fabric washing and getting started!
When you are stitching on knits, bare in mind that using a stretch stitch is preferable than just the regular straight stitch. This is the stitch I chose to use on all the straight seams.
This is a slightly wavy stitch that will allow for movement that would happen while it is being worn.
So I worked in an assembly line fashion, stitching together all the shoulder seams, stitched from the bottom of the center front up to a stopping point for the start of the zipper, then stitching the side seams and around the bottom of the sack.
At this point all the sacks were ready to have the linings stitched in the same way and the linings were inserted, pinned around the neck and armholes and stitched close to the edge to hold in place. Next is to apply the bias trim to finish the armholes. I opted to seam the bias on the armholes with a bias seam and not just over lap due to the weight of the fabric.
The separating zipper was inserted just like a center front opening zipper, BUT the separating part is at the BOTTOM. (making as per the Pottery Barn Kids model) After the zipper was inserted, then the neck bias was applied and all was completed. Sorry I don’t have a final picture…………sometime technology isn’t what it’s cracked up to be and things get deleted! But mom and baby were happy with the results.