Simp 8488 - Sophie's Jammies

Simp 8488 whipped right out, even including all the embellishment! I traced off the pattern in a size five as I know I will be using the master pattern  a lot in the future. It is very easy and sweet. I dug thru Ima's goodies to find some ricrac, eyelets and ribbon to trim it all off.

I know, that little ric rac needs an iron. It will get it.

Now on to a tute here on how I did the placket. I am not one to read patterns, unless they are a Vogue designer or such. I just pretty much cut,  sew, and do my own thing. It went right by me that the back of the jammie top had a center back seam. The method the pattern recommended for the center back placket looked a little awkward to me. Combine that with the fact that I want these jammies to last and last and here is what I did. All seams on the garment were stitched, serged together, ironed to one side, and then topstitched 3 clicks away from the seam line and another topstitching line a quarter inch away from that. It is what I call a mock flat fell stitch. These seams are going nowhere and will take lots and lots of washing. It's not your mother's heirloom sewing. Now to deal with the placket, or lack thereof.....
The challenge with the placket was to get a continuous line of topstitching and it was really pretty easy.

* Serge each center back seam edge. 

*Stitch the garment seam until you reach the point where the placket begins.

* Press the seam to one side

* Topstitch the seam about a sixteenth of an inch from the seam line, starting at the hemline. I use an edge stitching foot with  the blade running directly down the seamline. I click the needle 3 times to get the right position.

* Topstitch that seam until you reach the spot where the placket begins.

*Lift the presser foot and remove the garment from the machine, leaving a good 6 inches of thread.

* Stitch another topstitching seam a 1/4 of an inch from the first topstitching seam, again starting at the hemline. End that one also where the placket begins.

* Again, remove the garment from the machine leaving about 6 inches of thread. So now you have two rows of topstitching ending in a long thread where the placket begins.

Now comes the semi-tricky part:

* In the placket area put the top fabric section over the bottom fabric section, lining up the seam lines. In other words, just lay the doggone thing out flat, from where you left those long threads to where the neckline is. OK, they are now overlapped, kind of like they were sewn, but we know it hasn't been sewn yet.

*Now fold all of the bottom layer of fabric away from the placket area.  Keep it nice and flat. The top layer will go under the presser foot. Put the garment back under the presser foot and lower the needle into the exact same hole where you left off the last stitch and the long thread. All of the garment must be folded up behind this, otherwise you will stitch this seam shut. Don't want that!

* Start stitching, no backstitching! right from the same hole as the last stitch.

* Do the same thing for the 1/4 inch topstitching line.

* Remove it all from the machine. Thread a hand needle with those long threads. Now put the needle into the stitch hole that is after the one with the long thread. All threads will end up on the back. Tie them off.

If you have gone with your needle right into the next hole it will be almost invisible to tell where you stopped and started. Your placket will be topstitched just like the rest of the mock flat fell seam. Here is my final placket before adding the buttonhole and button:

Hard to tell where the seam ends and the placket begins, right?  It is right in the middle of the photo!  I used one small pale pink MOP button at the top of the placket and finished the neckline with bias tape, as per the pattern. Simp 8488 is  a great jammy pattern and I highly recommend. .......Bunny

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While stitching away on Sophie's jammies yesterday afternoon, I had a visitor. She stayed about 45 minutes and really enjoyed the apples hanging on our apple tree. Her name is Bambi. The camera was handy so I took this pic through the window.