Winter Sleepsack

When Bryn started wiggling herself out of her nighttime wrappings, I bought a second-hand sleepsack that I loved - but my Bryn grew out of it so quickly!  I decided that it would be cheaper to make one than to buy another, which is not actually true, when I could have been working during the hours I spent on it.  But it's far cuter than anything I could have found in a store.  Here are the pictures. 

I used fabric I had in my quilting stash, since it's basically a wearable quilt. I took measurements off the sack that I had purchased, and made it much longer so that she'll be able to use it for quite some time.

I've been wanting to pratice appliqué for a while - all my previous attempts have turned out badly - and so this was a perfect time to try.  I scanned a small piece of the front fabric with my printer/scanner and used my computer to enlarge and trace one of the moons on the fabric to make a pattern for the big moon I wanted to appliqué. I cut the moon and a couple stars out of the lining fabric, and stars out of the fabric I used on the front.  I appliqued the outside and batting layers together, mostly to help keep the batting in place when I wash the sack.

I had to buy zipper coil and pulls from a local supply shop and build my own zipper, since it's hard to find a 2 meter long zipper that's the right weight!  It was pretty easy, though, and it allowed me to put 2 pulls on so that you can open the zipper from either end.

The hardest part was trying to figure out how turn turn the thing right side out after sewing the armholes and neckhole and the zipper.  I searched the internet and enlisted the help of my sister (seamstress extraordinaire!), but we couldn't figure it out.  In the end I unstitched the armholes and just bound them with bias tape that I had on hand from another project using the same lining fabric.  And I think that's not a bad solution after all, since the bias binding will stand up to far more wear than just a seam.

Now that the sack is done (it took me at least a month, since I could only work on it while Bryn was sleeping), it's spring and it's getting too warm for such a heavy sack.  So I'm making a summer weight one.  I can't wait to see how it turns out!