Ollie is Quite the Helper...

One of the projects I was finishing up last week at our Guild workday was a pair of fuzzy cozy flannel sleep pants for my daughter. She always seems to be cold, so she loves anything that's flannel. I mailed them off to her on Monday and she received them yesterday, and is wearing them tonight. It's been a while since I have done any garment sewing, and when you have purchased a new pattern and the person is not here to try on, it involves a bit of guess-work. I was questioning the size and ended up using some of the Small and some of the Medium size markings. Laura says they are a perfect fit so I was lucky. I put a drawstring in the waist, so that solved the "how long do I cut this elastic?" problem.
Thought you might enjoy seeing what a HUGE help Ollie was to me when I was cutting out the pieces. He really loved the nice crinkly rattley tissue paper and he was convinced I was doing the entire job just to entertain him!!! He enjoyed trying to pull the entire length of fabric to the floor and when that didn't work he decided he should get right up where the action was. He did a great job of holding things in place till I got it all pinned down! lol Perhaps I should think about renting him out as an Apprentice for a Seamstress??
One bright idea I had while doing the waist and the drawstring was this: you know how hard it can be to thread a drawstring or elastic through a casing when you come to the seam allowances... if they have been pressed open, sometimes it is difficult to get by that spot. Instead of pressing them open, just in the waist area I pressed them to one side- all going in the same direction around the waist- lets' say clockwise. So when I threaded the drawstring through, there were no "fetch-ups" at the seams. Worked like a charm.
In another day or two I'll show you the quick Christmas Banner I made for her (now that she has received it) and share a hint to make applying the binding a little easier.

Piece,
Linda

A dog is a dog , but a cat is a purrrrson.