Pajamarama

I like sewing pajamas for the kids. There are just so many upsides:

1. Instant gratification: Most pajamas are a pretty quick sew. They're not complicated. They don't involve a lot of extra fuss. Some rather basic knit or woven fabric, a bit of elastic, and half an hour...ta-da!

2. Low-pressure sewing situation: They're pajamas, so they don't have to be perfect. As long as they're comfortable and don't fall apart, it's a win. Cute is a nice bonus, but if it doesn't work out, I'll live.

3. Frugality: The pajamas in the post were really inexpensive to make. Like free (well, unless you factor in my time, but even that wasn't a lot). Pajama sewing is perfect for recycling old grown-up clothes. It's not always (or even that often) that sewing is really "cheaper" than buying (not that it should be or needs to be!), and it's a nice bonus when I can make a summer pajama wardrobe for nothing rather than shelling out $ at Old Navy or Target or some other god forsaken hell hole.

4. Guaranteed wear time: Sewing for the kids is a risk. I've made some cute things that live exclusively in the closet. BUT! Take the number of pajama items in Adelaide's drawer, factor in the tossing turning toddler sweat and the spilled breakfast items, and multiply by the (ir)regularity of my laundry routine. All the jammies get worn at some point. ALL OF THEM.

Okay, on to the show-and-tell.

Adelaide already had the polka dot pajama shirt, but the matching pants are getting too small now. Luckily, I had leftover fabric...just enough for some shorts. These are the Sleeping Johns from Growing Up Sew Liberated, just shorter. I made them in a 4T so my little 3-year-old would have some room to grow.

The green and pink shorts were made from some of my old (huge and falling apart at the waistband) pajama pants. I used the free Oliver + S Sunny Day Shorts pattern in a 4T. (Adelaide measured between the 2T and 3T, but for pajamas I wanted to err on the side of baggy. I think it was definitely the right choice here.) It was a super easy and quick pattern, and they look really comfortable. Oh, and let's talk useful stuff for a sec: flat felled seams. Not that difficult on something like this and makes the shorts so much more sturdy. It's a little extra step I'm glad I took.

The pink shirt was just one of my old ill-fitting tops. I think I got it in high school and stopped wearing it about shortly post-college, but I held onto it hoping to re-purpose it one day. Only a decade and several moves later, that day has finally come. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

I took the seam ripper to the sides and some of the ribbing, then I redrafted the armholes and took the sides in (not quite enough, though). And then I reattached the ribbing I had undone and crossed the straps at the back. It was still too baggy, so I pinched a little pleat into the back. I didn't want to re-hem it, so it ended up really long. More of a nightgown. But that's cool, because why not?

Pajama sewing for the win.

KCW: Dotty Spring Pajamas

Hooray! I finished the pajamas, and it went a lot more smoothly than the first time around! Success!

Pattern: This was my second attempt at the Sleeping Johns and the Envelope Tee from Growing Up Sew Liberated. Once again, I cut the pants in the 2T size and the shirt in the 18-24 month size. This time, the only adjustments/changes were to make the short sleeves a bit longer than called for, more of an elbow-length sleeve.





Fabric: The brown ribbing has been in my stash for years, but I'm sure it was from JoAnn's. The dotted fabric is also from JoAnn's. It's a really nice knit, with a lot of stretch but also more stability than the waffle knit I used the first time around. The bolt sticker called it "legging knit," so there's that. It just feels really good, you know? Plus, Adelaide likes the dots.





How it went: Pretty well, amazingly enough. The thicker knit helped a lot. I think I need to add a little bit to the rise of the pants to accommodate the big cloth-diapered booty. And there was a lot of extra length in the legs for my on-the-small-side almost-two-year-old (I hacked off two inches, and there's still room to grow). The shirt fit great, though.

KCW: In Progress

I love Kids Clothes Week, but I usually end up planning to do way too much only to get frustrated and crunched for time and maybe, if I'm lucky, completing one thing. Well, KCW Spring 2013 is upon us, and this time I have promised to make it easy. I have one project I expect to complete and one that I will do if I have time. And I traced my pattern and cut my fabric ahead of time, because that always takes way longer than I think it will. Setting myself up for success, I am.

Right now I am in the midst of project number one: pajamas.

Remember these pajamas? I started them for Kids Clothes Week last fall, struggled, gave up, came back to them months later, and finally ended up with usable if somewhat wonky pajamas for the kiddo. You know, just part of that special relationship I have with knits.

But, for this KCW, I am getting back on the sewing-with-knits horse. Same pattern, better fabric, (foolishly?) high hopes.

I found this knit at JoAnn's a few weeks ago, described on the bolt sticker as "legging knit," and picked it up with this project in mind. It's thicker than the waffle knit I used last time, and it bounces back better when stretched. Honestly, I don't know that much about fabric and the right words to use and all that, but this stuff seems really nice and soft and stretchy, but still sturdy. So far the sewing is going much better than last time, and I think the fabric choice has a lot to do with that.

 

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Nothing says cozy like flannel pants

Now that it's almost February, I guess I really should get to the rest of my "sewing from December" stuff, huh?
But first...I've been giving it some thought, and it seems like a lot of my problems with posting regularly are photo problems. It's too dark, they're too blurry (especially true whenever Adelaide is involved), I don't have time for the whole DSLR-to-laptop-to-photo-editing-to-posting rigamarole, and on and on. So, resolution: get over it, Sarah. The photos won't always be good. Sometimes they'll be iffy-lighting-and-the-iPad photos. And that is good enough. Really.
Now, on to the flannel pants!

These are Simplicity 3584. They came together easily and, other than the several inches I trimmed off the bottom for length, they fit pretty well. Next time I might also add an extra inch in the rise to better accommodate the kiddo's cloth diapered booty, but they still work as-is.

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Jamarama

I started these way back in October. They were giving me fits at the time, so I set them aside for what turned out to be about two months. When I came back to them, things seemed to go alright. I don't know if that's because things actually were going more smoothly, or just because I wasn't so wound up about it, but either way: whew!

Pattern: These are the Sleeping Johns and the Envelope Tee from Growing Up Sew Liberated. I cut the pants in the 2T size and the shirt in the 18-24 month size in hopes of making something that will fit Adelaide through to spring.

Fabric: I ordered the apple-print thermal knit from Fabric.com last spring. I think it was on clearance. It's cute, but perhaps a bit thinner than I'd like. The ribbing is something I picked up from the remnants bin at JoAnn's. That is pretty much my exclusive method for selecting ribbed knits: Is there any ribbing in the remnants bin? Does the color not make my eyes hurt? Buy it! Buy it now! Which is kind of hilarious given how little I sew with knits and, thus, how little I actually need/use ribbing.

How it went down: Ugh. Knits. Knits and I just don't get along that well, but I keep trying. I made a few changes to the patterns, adding ribbed cuffs to the pants and the shirt both. The pants are soooo long. Adelaide is fairly wee, so I knew 2T would be a bit big and I shortened the legs a bit, but apparently not enough. On the other hand the ribbed cuffs mean they won't drag on the ground and trip her despite being too long. And she won't grow out of them anytime soon. I finished these up in December and, after Adelaide wore them a few times, it became clear that the neck opening was too big. One morning she ended up with the neck opening around her chest and her poor little arms out naked in the cold. I'm not sure what percentage of this neck-fit issue is attributable to the pattern vs. because I picked a size slightly too big vs. due to some stretching out while sewing. Regardless, a fix was needed to make the shirt wearable. So I hand-stitched the envelope closed at the ribbing-overlap point, making the opening more normal-neck-hole sized. And that seems to have worked.

Side note: Photos were a bit hard to get for these. The kid just wants to "help" with the camera/iPad. So Most of them came out totally blurry or something like this:

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