Pajama Shorts

After finishing the hallway tablet, I said I wanted to return to my skirt sewing project. I did do that last week. Once again, it was a minor disaster. Then I spent many hours taking out the seams.

I decided to try sewing a simpler project that had a pattern and required less following of my heart. That is how I ended up making a pair of pajama shorts.

Skirting the line of insanity

I left the shape of the skirt intact from last time. But I cut off the portion that was going to be the waistband to construct the waistband separately. The fabric is rather delicate, so I decided to back it with a more structured fabric. I had some leftover cotton quilting fabric I bought in 2020 to make reusable face masks, so I tried that. It might've been okay actually, but I made the mistake of using two layers. My vision was to have the waistband be primarily made from this fabric, and have the delicate floral fabric as a top layer for aesthetic. But it ended up being pretty thick. And I don't think I used the correct stitches so it was extra stiff.

On the plus side, I did sew a mostly okay elastic half-waistband! But I couldn't attach it to the front side well. The waistband got twisted on the sides. I also didn't leave much allowance for seams/hems so my stitches kept missing and I had to redo a lot of parts... And some parts couldn't be redone...

You can see in this picture, the back side is mostly ok except for the twisting on the side. But the front side is not ok. It is flat, but not flat on me LOL. Also the general shape of the skirt leaves much to be desired. Ideally, I want something flowy and twirly but this is very straight and sack-like. I think I need significantly more fabric to achieve the shape I want.

So I will throw this back in the backlog. I think I will try to make a skirt without this fabric first. Then find a way to incorporate this into another project. This fabric is not the easiest to work with and I need more experience first.

A "shorts" success

I had an old pair of plaid pajama pants from college. Like, I think I wore these in my first year... which was around 2012. So. They're pretty old. I didn't love them because they had a ribbon-tie waistband (extra effort to put on and take off) and the pant legs were too long. Back in the day, I attempted to add ribbon-ties to the ankles. It didn't work that well.

Well, eventually I became an adult with a full-time job and income, so I bought better pajama pants and never wore those again. At some point in the past few years, I cut them apart with intention to do something with it. It was perfectly good fabric. And the ribbon became a cat toy. (My partner did not know the ribbon's origin and he was shook that they used to be part of my pants! To him, it's always been a cat toy lol.)

So it seemed fitting to turn them into a pair of pajama shorts.

I used a free pattern from Melly Sews. Fortunately, the free pattern size is my size. I printed out the pattern, taped it together, then I traced and re-cut it on some brown paper I had saved from packaging. The paper is a bit wrinkly, but it did the job.

I had cut the pants in half on the side seams (I just cut off the seams instead of ripping it apart). I realized I couldn't use it like that because the front/back seams weren't flat. I was going to scrap the plan. But the next day, I realized I could cut those seams too and join the pieces back together into a flat rectangle.

(And that is how I ended up sewing shorts for nearly 6 hours straight instead of taking my usual post-climbing/lunch afternoon nap.)

I joined them using a straight stitch, pressing the seam open, and finishing the edges with a zigzag stitch. (In retrospect, I should have used a wider zigzag. The stitches are literally hanging by a thread.)

The pattern barely fit, but they did! The seam where the pieces were joined is facing difference directions on the front and back pieces, but that is ok. I don't need it to be pretty. Just functional.

Also, I love using a rotary cutter instead of cutting with scissors. I feel like I can cut more precisely, especially through multiple layers.

Then I followed the instructions to sew the front/back seams, side seams, and bottom seam. I finished the seams with the widest zigzag that my sewing machine can do. Looked way better than the first zigzags I did. The pattern included 1/2-inch seam allowances. This was wonderful and now I'm certain that much of my failures have been due to giving myself very narrow seam allowances. Oops. Working with a very structured fabric helped a lot too.

The last steps were adding the elastic waistband and hemming the leg openings. Pulling the elastic through was more difficult than I expected. And it twisted after putting the shorts on to test. So I added extra stitches on each of the front/back/side seams to help keep it flat.

And here is the result! They look like real shorts! The areas where I rejoined the fabric don't look too bad either.

Here they are on me. (Plus free feet pics?) The size is perfect! I like these more than my other pajama shorts in some ways because they are longer/thicker and don't ride up.

Where to go from here

After gaining a little confidence, I thought it would be a great idea to try making my own underwear. (Spoiler alert: It was not a great idea.) It has been a goal of mine for many years because y'all know how hard it is to find a well-fitting pair in a material that feels nice??

(I will not include pics for this project. I do not recommend using your imagination.)

There's a lot of tutorials on how to create a pattern from an existing pair, but I think it didn't work that well on the pair I was attempting to recreate... Well, I managed to create a pattern. But my seam allowances ended up too narrow somehow. And I once again was reminded that sewing stretchy fabric is the devil. I did manage to sew everything except the leg openings and waist. I did try. I did not succeed. My stitches kept missing, and I think the fabric stretched while I was sewing so the edges were all wavy.

Back into the backlog it goes!

I will stick to non-stretchy fabrics and patterns for now.

I bought some patterns from Sewing Therapy after seeing them on Instagram (they looked soooo cute). Specifically, I got patterns for the Hanbok wrap skirt, Ele skirt, tie dress, and Arles top. They also happened to be on sale right now. I will get to them eventually. I will need to actually buy fabric for them though. Buying fabric online is intimidating, but with Joann's gone, there aren't many options.