Friday, January 22, 2010

Katrina's Soaker Tutorial for the Novice Sewer - Part 3




Depending on when the kiddos wake up from their naps, this will be the last in the Katrina Tutorial Series!  The first tutorial covered cutting the pattern and sewing the wetzone layer on to the soaker.  The second tutorial showed sewing the soaker body and the waist and leg bands.  This one will show you how to sew the waist and leg bands to the soaker body.  And you'll be all done!


The soaker should be tucked inside the waistband.  Match all of the selvedge (rough) edges together, and start pinning.  Pin the center seam in the center of the back first.  Put your pins in like the pic below, and your sewing machine can just sew right over them. Make sure the pins are perpendicular to the rough edges, not parallel.  Also, make sure that you've got them on the inside of the soaker, not on the outside of the waistband.  If you put them outside (even though it is easier to pin that way!), your machine won't be able to sew over them.






Next pin the center front to the center of the soaker.  It is going to seem like the soaker is too big for the waist band.  That's ok, it is supposed to be like that.  You have to ease the soaker into the waistband. 




You've already pinned the center front and center back, now pin each side.  Now keep halving the distance between each pin, and pinning the soaker to the waistband.  Try really hard not to stretch the fleece.  It's really tempting to do!  The reason that the waist band is a smaller circle is because it cinches in the soaker.  If you stretch it to fit the soaker, you lose the elastic property of the fleece at your baby's waist.  If you get a big wrinkle, instead of gentle gathers, undo some pins and spread the fabric out a bit and re-pin.  This can take a while.  When you're done, you should have something like this:

 


You're going to sew around the edges of the circle.  Like this:



Here is what it looks like when done sewing.




Take your pins out, and flip the waistband up.




You're so close!!!  Repeat what you just did for the waistband but do it with the leg bands.  They are a little harder because the holes are smaller.  I try to line up those seams with the bottom of the soaker.

Now it is completely finished!




If any part of this is unclear or makes zero sense, please leave me a comment!  Thanks for looking :)

10 comments:

Lindsay said...

Thank you for this tutorial! I used to be a decent sewer but haven't done much sewing in a long time so I was a bit nervous about starting up again and potentially wasting good recycled sweaters and fleece. Wish me luck. ;)

Marie said...

You'll be great! Let me know if anything was unclear. :)

AJs' Mama said...

Fantastic tutorial. It was so nice to see step by step what was needed to create the soakers. I sewed 3 tonight in less than 2 hours. Once I had the first done it went super quick...esp. with my serger. Thank you again.

Heidi Maxwell said...

I was wondering what kind of fleece you used? I have made many things with the noveltly prints from JoAnns but it is thinner than the no pill fleece. I would love to make some print soakers for my girls.

Also - are they a good night soaker?

Heidi Maxwell said...

Forgot to ask - have you ever made any with the leg bands a bit longer?

Thank you!

Marie said...

AJ's Mama - glad it was so helpful! Yay :)

Marie said...

Heidi - I've used the anti-pill and the blizzard fleece from Joann's fabric. I make sure to sew an extra layer in the wetzone and they have worked really well for us.

When you say longer legband, do you mean it is longer down the leg, or longer around the thigh? If you make it longer around the thigh, it won't fit well into the leg hole when you are sewing. It would be easier to size up on the pattern.

If you mean longer down the leg, I think you could definitely do that. Just cut the rectangle for the leg band a bit wider. If you wanted to make actual shorts or pants, there is a pattern for them on Katrina's website. Hmm, does that make sense? I just re-read it and it seemed confusing :(

Heidi Maxwell said...

Longer down the leg is what I meant. I may try some each way. We may have to trade out all of our PUL - it seems our youngest is having issues with it. Soft fleece will be a nice alternative too.

Thank you for a great pattern!

Natalie said...

Great tutorial. Thanks! Do you have one showing how to put the ruffles on the bum? I love it! Or how about a skirty? :)

Emily said...

Thank you for sharing this! I sewed one up for my daughter last night and it's awesome. She uh needs a little extra help overnight.

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