More Pyjamas!

 Over a wintry, rainy weekend the Bernina 700D and I got to know each other.

I'd had an excellent demonstration of how to do everything by the salesman at the shop but I worked through the instruction manual as well. After much fiddling and a few dozen test runs I had the tensions all correct, the blade position right and the differential feed all set for the cotton knit I was about to sew.

I had to stop every so often to answer Flipper's questions about how many things I'd made so far. I guess I must have said an overlocker would make me faster...

Once I was onto the T-shirt construction I did fly along. Until I kept unthreading my lower looper by pulling the threads at the end of stitching just like I do with my sewing machine. Lesson learnt. Just let it run. I am now quite proficient at rethreading the looper threads so a useful lesson, although a little frustrating.

Then I had a little practice at unpicking overlocker sewing, after sewing one sleeve cuff onto the wrong side of the sleeve. That wasn't so easy, so A's sleeves and cuffs are fractionally shorter than intended. But perfect for it I say!

I used Made By Rae's Flashback Skinny T pattern for the tops. There's a few options for the cuff and I thought these wider cuffs looked perfect for pyjama tops. I didn't really follow the instructions (in fact I stapled them together in the wrong order which may have put me off somewhat) but the pattern and instructions are superb and the end result is a really great long sleeve T.  I'm already imagining printed, long sleeve T-shirts, short sleeve T-shirts and even, maybe a turtleneck or skivvy...

I sewed the T-shirts using the overlocker, and only used the sewing machine (which purrs so sweetly now that it's been oiled that I really feel bad for how it used to scream at me and how I used to ignore it) for the hems.

I am so pleased with having seams that look this professional it's absurd. There's no gaping on the right side and the stitch has plenty of stretch in it, so I'm happy to use the overlocker alone for knit sewing. I attached the neck band with the overlocker too which worked perfectly, although this was during my lower looper unthreading moments so there are some wobblier bits on these neck bands.

I should make a note to myself that I could have made these neck bands a wee bit longer as there is a bit of gathering effect at the neck line. Although I much prefer that to the gape-y loose neck band I did here (that one needs shortening a bit)

 The pyjama pants were the Sleepover pants again, but this time without any fancy cuffs. I just added 1 inch to the leg length to then make a 5/8ths inch narrow hem.

There's enough length there for a bit of growing room.

After making my lovely plain white T-shirts I cut holes in them!

I put a scrap of the flannel fabric behind the T-shirt, holding it up to the window to see through and get the placement right, then stitched the two together with a narrow zig zag stitch, then simply chopped away the T-shirt fabric. Reverse applique for the lazy sewist?


I've done this a couple of times on cheap, plain store bought T-shirts and felt very clever. Now I can make the T-shirt AND the hole in the middle.

While the sewing machine was away for repairs I cut out two dresses for me (aaaah! I never sew for me, too scary) as well as a winter coat for P. The coat will probably be next to be sewn, but meanwhile a friend has delivered the single largest and most expensive piece of fabric I've ever seen and requested my sewing help.

Should be fun. Can anyone else say they've sewn a movie screen? Here's hoping I don't stuff it up!