Sleep Sack
My first project on my new Bernina was a pair of yellow overalls, which I may blog about later. My second project was better, though. It took only a few hours (including nursing and diaper breaks) and turned out so perfectly that I have trouble believing that I made it (without a pattern, too, which makes me extra proud.) I’ve never made anything that looks good before, and luckily I documented the process along the way.
Step 1: Receive some fuzzy fleece in the mail. Find some flannel in your fabric stash that will be perfect for a lining. Rejoice, and feel smug that your miserliness is finally justified. Ignore the fact that that flannel has been taking up space in your closet since before your wedding, and has followed you through three states.
Step 2: Lay out a current sleeper and cut around it. I gave an inch for grow room, plus another inch for seam allowances, all around. And then a little more, because she’s growing so darn fast, and it’s a bag so who cares if it’s – ahem – baggy.
Step 3: Cut little scoops for armscye and neck openings. Cut two of the lining and two of the fabric. Cut the neck scoop lower on the two front pieces. Slice the front pieces up the middle, to make room for the zipper. Realize that means an extra inch of seam allowance that you didn’t take into account, and trim down the backs to match. (Or say you did, but really just be lazy and figure that it’s just a bag and that it will all be fine. I’m not telling which I did.)
Step 4: Go through your notions box and realize that you have seven different zippers on hand, only one of which you remember the project it was supposed to be for. Unfortunately, the only matching one is 8 inches long, and you don’t think the baby would probably stay asleep very long if you tried to shove her into a sleep sack with an opening like a reluctant sausage. Go with the 20 inch zipper even though it’s brown.
Realize that chocolate and light blue actually look good together. Pretend to your spouse that you did that on purpose.
Ok, enough tutorial. I didn’t feel like taking that many pictures. Basically I made two bags, sewed together the neck edges, the bottoms of the armholes, and the edges of the front with the zipper sandwiched between them. Then I turned the whole thing right-side out, sewed together the tops of the sleeves, and added some beautiful edgestitching.
The zipper was so easy to put in – and if I haven’t already said it a million times, I hate zippers. I was going to make this button all the way up, that’s how much I hate zippers. Enough to put up with sewing twelve buttons by hand, and buttoning and unbuttoning them all every morning and every night.
I should have trusted my Bernina. Now I love zippers.
Step Last: Insert baby.
She slept an extra hour this morning (usually she’s up by 9:30 like clockwork). I credit warm feet.