I help coach a high school girls lacrosse team. The other coach, "L," has two kids of her own and a third on the way (yes, yet another pregnant friend!). We both bring our kids to practices and games fairly regularly, so my kids and I know L's kids pretty well.
About a year ago, I was browsing around at Joann's when I saw a really cute "Lacrosse Girl" flannel print. It immediately made me think of Littles and of L's daughter, "J." (Note: For some reason, my pictures of this print show up super hot pink on my monitor. If they show up that way on yours, trust me, the fabric wasn't that bright in person.)
At the time, I didn't really know what I could do with flannel, but I still bought 3 yards of it, figuring I could find something! Now I'm wishing I bought a lot more, as I have tons of project ideas that could use flannel. Sadly, the fabric was on the Red Tag (clearance) shelf when I bought it, so I doubt it's ever coming back...
But I did make a little drawstring backpack for Littles a few months ago. I use it to keep coloring books, dolls, and other little things for her to amuse herself with when she's on the sidelines at lacrosse games. And with J's birthday approaching, I pulled the fabric out again to see what else I could do with it.
I decided to make her some pajamas. I didn't have quite enough fabric to make pajama pants, but with spring right around the corner, I figured that short-sleeve pajamas were perfectly appropriate.
The pattern is a kids pajamas pattern that I bought ages ago. It's Simplicity It's So Easy 2738.
I had to totally guess on J's size. She is turning 6, so I went ahead and made a size 7. I figure that baggy pajamas are OK, and besides, for kids stuff, they can always grow in to something that is too big, but they can't shrink to fit into something too small! Also, sizes 3-6 were on one part of the pattern paper and sizes 7-12 were on another, so by making a size 7 for J, I'm able to use the same pattern envelope to make stuff for Littles in a smaller size :)
A couple of modifications I made:
- I did french seams to prevent the flannel from fraying along the raw edges.
How I did it: The pattern called for a 5/8" seam allowance. For each seam, I put the fabric with right sides facing out, rather than wrong sides, like you usually do when sewing. I sewed with a 1/4" seam allowance. Then I turned the fabric inside out, so now I had wrong sides together, as usual. I sewed with a 3/8" seam allowance, enclosing the previous seam allowance (and its raw edges) inside. The result was a 5/8" seam (only 3/8" visible) with no raw edges. - I did a drawstring waist instead of elastic, since I don't know how big J's waist is and I didn't want them falling off her.
How I did it: For the drawstring, I cut a long strip about 1.5 inches wide. I folded it in half and ironed it down, then turned in a little bit (about 1/4") on the raw edges and ironed those down as well. I did a straight stitch seam to sew the two sides together. I left the edges unfinished until later. - The drawstring waist meant that I needed holes on the casing at the waist where I wanted the drawstring to come out.
How I did it: Just before sewing down the casing at the waist, I marked where I wanted the holes. Since flannel frays easily, I didn't want to leave the holes unfinished, so I did buttonholes, using the automatic buttonhole feature of my sewing machine (a Kenmore). It took me a few tries practicing on scrap flannel, but once I got the hang of it, it was easy, and the holes turned out nicely! Once the holes were sewn, I sewed down the casing all the way around (following the original directions), then used a safety pin to thread the drawstring through the holes and around the casing.
Here's a close-up of the finished drawstring and holes:
- The pattern includes a matching top, but I didn't have enough fabric for that, so I decided to just embellish a plain t-shirt instead. I really wanted a white t-shirt, but I couldn't find one in J's size in time, so I grabbed a hot pink one instead. It actually worked nicely with the flannel's colors.
How I did it: I cut out a piece of the flannel and pressed the edges under, then sewed around. This left neatly finished edges that won't fray.
Hubby asked if it was upside down. Haha. No! The lacrosse sticks are right side up, and there is a smaller "Lacrosse Girl" at the top that is also right side up.
With J's birthday present finished, I decided to work on a gift for the new baby, who is due in July. L just found out that it's a girl! So she clearly needs matching Lacrosse Girl gear!
The pants are from Simplicity 2291. I wasn't thrilled with the way they turned out. They are huge! I was debating over whether to make small (3-6 month size) or medium (6-12 month size), given that we do live in Texas, so the new baby may not need pants until she's past 6 months old :) I decided to make the small size, but they turned out to be closer to 6-12 month size anyway! Here they are on a real live 1-year-old :) Noob is solidly in 12 month size pants, and these fit him pretty well:
Aside from being larger than I expected, the pattern did work well for pajama pants, but I wouldn't use them to make actual pants (which is what the pattern was really intended for). They're too baggy.
The one modification I made to the pattern was to do french seams, as I did on J's shorts. I didn't like that J's shorts ended up with a somewhat bulky 3/8" seam allowance that couldn't be trimmed, so on these pants, I first sewed with a 3/8" seam allowance, then trimmed it down, then turned the fabric and sewed with a 1/4" seam allowance. This still gave me the required 5/8" seam allowance, but the seams weren't as bulky.
I paired the pants with an embellished onesie. One of our nearby Babies R Us stores is moving locations, so they put the whole store on sale for the last few weeks to clear out their inventory before the move. I bought a bunch of plain white onesies in a variety of sizes at 50-75% off, so I can do embellished onesies for all of my pregnant friends and any more who turn up in the future :)
As on J's shirt, I embellished using a scrap from the flannel. I used a much smaller scrap for the onesie, since it's much smaller than J's shirt :) I also accidentally cut the scrap without a whole lot extra around the edges, so rather than folding under the raw edges, as I did on J's shirt, I secured the scrap to the shirt using Heat n Bond Lite, then used a satin stitch all around the edges. This should do a good job of preventing fraying.
I'm pretty proud of these two sets! I think they turned out really well, and they weren't at all hard to put together (just a little more than one night of work).
