Baby's Blanket

When my first daughter was born, she received a ton of baby blankets.  Her favourites were always the ones that had satin on one side and minke on the other.  She loves how cool and soft the satin is while the other side is "warm."   My youngest daughter didn't receive nearly as many blankets and while we've been on the hunt for these special satin blankets, we've never been able to find one.  I decided that I would make one of these for her and give it as a gift for Christmas.

I bought some beautiful raspberry minke, satin and then blanket binding.  I began by sewing the minke and the satin together (wrong sides together).  I then pinned the blanket binding around the blanket, one side at a time, stopping at each of the corners. 

Upon reaching the corners, I mitred the corners by bending the binding around the corner and then folding the excess fabric into a diagonal line.  There are many tutorials on how to do this, I checked out this one from sewing.com.  I am happy how this turned out, but it was extremely frustrating sewing this together.  The satin and the minke are both super slippery and I found that I needed to pin every 2" to prevent the binding from sliding around on the blanket.  I ended up going back after having sewn the blanket to hand stitch the underside where I had missed the binding.  It did get better as I went along and I think that my daughter will likely love it, but I will definitely think twice before making this type of blanket again!

Sleep Sacks Round 2 (& 3)

My youngest daughter is growing like a weed and her little sleep sacks are no longer fitting.  As the weather changes, it's becoming more and more important that she stays warm while she's sleeping.  I decided to make her two new sleep sacks that were longer and wider.  Once again, I adapted the tutorial from Make It and Love It.  To create the pattern for these sleep sacks, I took a larger t-shirt of hers and traced the neckline and shoulders.  I then extended 30 " below the neckline (along the fold) and made the bottom wider slightly.

I cut the pattern out, after tracing it onto freezer paper and ironing it onto the fabric.  I cut the back piece on the fold and the two front pieces, lowering the neckline.  I sewed the separable zipper onto the two front pieces, zipping down from the neckline towards the feet.  I started the zipper at the top of the neckline and then sewed downwards.  There was a small bit of fabric that was longer then the zipper.

I sewed the bottom of the two front pieces together so that her little feet wouldn't get drafty with the opening.

I then sewed the front and back pieces together at the shoulders and along the side and the bottom.

This is the sleep sack flipped right side out.

I cut strips of bias to finish off the edges of the armholes and the neckline.  I didn't bother doing anything fancy with these as the edges won't fray.  I think it did a nice job of finishing off the sleep sack, though.  One my daughter wears this to sleep she looks so comfy and cozy.  I love the way it stretches and she has tons of room to move around in it, she can even crawl.

I duplicated this pattern in a minke/cotton mix.  The interior of the sack is a pink soft minke while the exterior is this cute ladybug quilting cotton.  I sewed the zipper in, between the two fabrics.  I then followed the pattern exactly but with two fabrics.

I used a store bought bias tape around the armholes and neckline.

Of course, I've added one of my new fancy labels!  

I think that this sleep sack is super cute.  I love the fabric and the minke is so soft and cozy.  My only complaint is that the sleep sack seems a bit tight.  The fabrics were all cut from the same pattern and I used the same seam allowances for both.  Perhaps the lack of stretch to the fabric made the difference in the two?  I'm now considering ripping the zipper out of this cute ladybug one and using it to make another fleece sack.  I will definitely think again before making another sleep sack like this!

Sleep Sack

My second little one is quite the kicker, while she sleeps.  Ever since she was born she kicks her blankets off as soon as you lie her down and they somehow manage to get from her feet up to her head.  A good friend of mine, made her a lovely sleep sack, it was lined with minke, making it so cozy. This was the perfect gift for my little kicker!

I've since tried to make 2 sleep sacks of my own.  The first one has snaps on the shoulders and a zipper that goes along the bottom and up one side, much like the style of the gift sleep sack.  I was trying to make this sleep sack larger then the original gift and I wasn't thrilled with the way it turned out.  I found it difficult to get the shoulder snaps to match just perfectly and I feel like I made them a bit too wide in the end.

The second sleep sack that I made was for my newborn niece.  For this one, I used a store-bought sleep sack (from Babies R'Us) as the prototype.  I decided to try to have the zipper come up the middle.

This one was much easier to put together, the only tricky part was completing the zipper at the bottom.  I had chosen a separable zipper (which I had never sewn before) and I made the zipper zip up towards the neck so that the opening of the sleep sack would be wide enough to fit the baby in.  After a bit of fiddling I managed to get this to work and it looked pretty good, unfortunately I didn't take a photo up close.