my friend Rae’s adorable line of flannel for Cloud9 Fabrics, called Fanfare, is BACK!  fun new colors, same cute animals, and i’m excited to be part of the blog extravaganza today!  my kids are still squeezing into the fanfare pajamas i made them last fall even though both are about 2” too short now, so these prints are definitely kid-pleasers!

i decided to sew a Lua Sleep Sack by Straightgrain Patterns for my littlest guy, in Foxes in Gold.  i haven’t sewn much for him yet, but i thought this would be the perfect project to keep him cozy as we head into fall in the next month or so.  it’s been a pretty toasty summer around here, Portland-wise, but we had a few days of cooler weather last week and it put me in the mood for autumn.

he went from being swaddled/in our room/waking a couple times a night to rolling/in his own crib/sleeping up to 12 hours straight suddenly around 5 months, and now at 6 months he’s working on sitting, rolling like a pro, shoving everything into his mouth, and moving all around in his crib.

needless to say, loose blankets are NOT a good idea for him at this point, and i loved using sleep sacks when my older kids got to this phase.

the Lua pattern is well-written and a fun sew.  i made the 6-12 month size and there’s plenty of growing room for him, which is great.  i had just the tiniest bit of trouble with when to start/stop sewing on the invisible zipper, but it turned out fine.  the sleep sack features buttons to close the shoulders which i would think would be a no-no as far as choking hazards go, but An provides the most thorough of instructions on attaching those suckers so they’ll never pop off.

the organic flannel is thick and cozy, so i decided to omit the batting.  it doesn’t get very cold here at night and he’ll be wearing a footie sleeper underneath anyway.  i lined my sleep sack with essex yarn dyed linen in steel, provided from my sponsor Drygoods Design.  aside from the zipper/piping, i sewed it with my walking foot to keep it moving smoothly along the flannel.

*full disclosure – after many washes, my original fanfare flannel did start pilling which i hear is part of the deal with organic flannel – it isn’t treated with the yucky chemicals that prevent that.  after one wash this flannel is still incredibly soft, so time will tell whether that happens again.  

i chose green buttons and blue piping to go with the soft gold and gray of the print – i love soothing colors on babies.

inspired by this fantastic little fox done by one of An’s pattern testers, i decided to add a fox appliqué to the bottom of the sleep sack for a bit of extra foxiness.  i drew a larger version of Rae’s fox, stuck it on with some steam a seam lite, and machine appliquéd it onto the front using a kona olive circle as my base.

the little triangles echo a design on the selvedge.  he’s made out of scraps (oh yeah, THAT’S why i keep all those tiny pieces around!).  appliqué can be pretty tedious but i actually really love doing it.  plus it makes this sleep sack feel extra special.

check out all the fun new colors of Fanfare Flannel over at Cloud9 and keep your eyes open as it ships to your favorite shops (i’ve already seen some prints at Bolt and modern domestic, for Portland locals).

thanks for having me on the tour, Rae + Cloud9!

*i was given this fabric at no charge in exchange for blogging about it.  my opinions are my own.