Stella: How to make the print continue

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The Stella jumpsuit* is without doubt the most popular Sofilantjes* pattern for babies up until now. In the Sew and Show group on Facebook, Stella’s usually get many likes, especially when the pictures show a little baby wearing the jumpsuit. No wonder, it is so cute!

Having seen so many Stella’s passing by, I wanted to try this pattern myself. We don’t have a baby in our house anymore, but Mr SieBe, although almost two years old, still fits in size 80. So, enough reason to buy this pattern and try. As a perfectionist, I was reluctant to start this project, since I wanted the print of the one side of the front to continue on the other side. I have seen some on the FB group that perfectly matched left and right front pieces, but I did not find a tutorial on how to do that. Therefore, I decided not only to try it out, but also to write a tutorial if I would succeed.

Unfortunately, my first attempt failed. However, I was lucky that I had enough fabric to cut one of the front pieces again. This time I was succesful! So here comes my tutorial

The result!

There might be other, even easier, methods to achieve the same result, but this is how I did it:

1. Cut one of the front pieces.
   
2. Fold over and press the 1 cm seam allowance of the straight side of the front piece, wrong sides together. Or: sew the lining to the front piece that you have cut already. That is what I did. Place this front piece right side up on the fabric (right side up as well) so that it covers the print just like the print on the front piece. See picture. Make sure you’ll have enough fabric at the opposite side for the other front piece.

Step 2: Place front piece 1 on the fabric

3. Fold the straight side of the front pattern piece over as much as the width of the lining piece. Place the folded pattern piece next to the front piece that you have placed on the fabric. You can choose to place it with an overlap of about 1-2 mm (0,04-0,08″) over the first front piece, because when you sew at the seam allowance of 1 cm a little bit of the print will be on the edge, when you fold the lining to the inside. I didn’t do this, but I think this will be an improvement.

Step 3: Place the folded pattern piece next to the piece already cut.

4. Depending on your preferred method of cutting, now trace around or cut all the sides except for the straight side that will be in the center front. Another option is to pin the pattern piece to the fabric, but make sure there are no pins in the folded area. I traced around the pattern piece.

Step 4: I traced around the pattern piece, except for the straight side.

5. Then, remove part front piece 1 and undo the fold in your pattern piece, while you keep the pattern piece in place, and finish your tracing / cutting / pinning. Now, you have your whole second front piece traced / cut / pinned. If you chose to trace or pin, you can now cut it.

Step 5: Finish tracing around the pattern piece. You see two folds in the picture, but only the second fold is correct (left in the picture). Please ignore the other fold.

6. You’re done! Ok, not really, now you only have the front pieces, so you still have to cut the other pieces of course. Then, the fun part starts: Sewing! Make sure you sew precisely at the 1 cm (3/8″) seam allowance. When attaching the snaps, place them carefully and you’ll see that the print continues!

In my next post I will show pictures of my son wearing his lion Stella! I can already tell that it was hard to take these pictures :D, but the result is funny.

If you don’t have the pattern of the Stella Jumpsuit yet, you can buy it on the website of Sofilantjes in English*, Dutch* or French*. It comes in sizes 50-92 / NB – 2y.

Did you like this post? Curious on the modelled pictures of the Stella? Follow me on Instagram @siebesew or subscribe to my blog below.

I welcome comments on how to improve this method, other methods, questions, or what else you have to say!

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