Snap pajamas and snap sewing tutorial.

by Lupine.

 

I have made three sets of pajamas for the three little girls in my life. One little girl is my niece in LA, who I won't get to see wearing these on christmas eve, but the other two are for my people. I can not show you a picture of the first pair, they are in the mail as of yesterday (high-five to self). 

I used my favorite little person pj pattern, Oliver+S Storytime Pajamas. I just made one little change. I decided that making the ties out of flannel would be bulky and not inspire the do-it-yourself mindedness of my children. The little one will still need help with her snaps, but snaps are something they can conceivably learn to do themselves while these jams still fit.

 

I think for my next round of these I need to do little tabs to attach the snaps, especially on the inside seams. It would be a bit easier for the girls and seem less wonky to me. I am not really sure these are even wonky, it is just attaching snaps is a wonky adventure. 

By the way, I sew on my snaps by machine. And here is how:

The foot on the left has an "open toe" creating a place for the snap to be and still holding it in place.  

1. Choose an open toe presser foot if you have it. 

 

2. Position snap. This is the most difficult part, and requires some adjusting and checking once under the presser foot.

3. Drop your feed dogs. You probably never do this, so give it a try if you can. Most machines have this feature.

4. Set your machine on a wide zig zag stitch with no stitch length at all. As in 0.

5. Check the snap position again, just to be sure. Lower your needle in both sides of the snap by hand, turning your hand dial toward you on your machine just enough to check that it clears the holes on the snaps. Once it does, do not move a muscle.

6. Sew. With your pedal at a low to medium speed. It takes a couple stitches to set it in place, like 6-7.

 

7. Tie the thread tales together to insure it is knotted. 

8. Repeat for the other side of the snap.

 

By the way, this works for a button too. I can walk you through that some time, but it is basically the exact same thing.