A Short Entry on Pajama Shorts

When I finished muslining McCall’s 7324, I had about as much leftover fabric as I’d used for the top. And since my muslin wasn’t wearable, I thought I’d have another go at some kind of top to make up for it. Despite the fact that I myself professed this navy fabric closer to a quilting cotton than to the shirting it was marketed as, I foolishly latched onto the idea of making a ruffle top following this Megan Nielsen tutorial (and brought to my attention by this Peneloping blog post).

It was a hilariously abject failure. For starters, I didn’t actually have enough fabric, which makes for some sad not-really-ruffles. The fabric was entirely too stiff, so it hung like a paper bag. The cheerful yellow bias tape I used around the armholes was also too stiff and didn’t want to stay rolled to the inside, and even though it was mostly hidden it managed to tip the entire thing from playful and cute into clownish territory in my mind.

So…I cut both the failed top and the muslin apart again and made pajama shorts.

The front of a pair of drawstring pajama shorts hanging on a dress form

The back of a pair of drawstring pajama shorts hanging on a dress form

I used Simplicity 1520, the same pattern as my tartan pajama pants, along with my trusty pocket template. There’s something deeply satisfying about a well-sewn pocket, even a very simple in-seam one.

A close-up of the pocket opening in a pair of drawstring pajama shorts hanging on a dress form

I incorporated all of the after-the-fact modifications I made to my flannel pants, which made this relatively quick and simple to whip up. I have vague recollections of unnecessarily complicating the sewing of the elastic/drawstring casing, but I’m positive it was for no good reason whatsoever, so I won’t try to recall what I did or didn’t do here.

Everything was sewn on my regular sewing machine, and then the edges were finished on my serger. There’s both an elastic and a drawstring at the waist; the drawstring is just a strip of the main fabric with the raw edges tucked in, sewn flat, and then knotted at each end. The elastic and drawstring were threaded through buttonholes (reinforced with interfacing, which you can see peeking out in the shot below) in the casing.

A pair of pajama shorts turned inside-out on a dress form to reveal in-seam pocket bags and the stitching throughout

The finished pajama shorts fit just fine, but I haven’t actually worn them yet. We keep the house too cold in the late fall, winter, and early spring for shorts (for me, at least), and even in the warmer months you’re more likely to find me wearing loose, lightweight pants than shorts indoors. If I don’t find myself reaching for these come summer, at least they’re made well enough that I wouldn’t feel guilty about donating them.

FO: Bonus Shorts

Like any conscientious and/or paranoid sewist, I typically buy more yardage than I need for a project. Even though I’m on the smaller end of the size range, and I understand that cutting layouts and yardage estimates tend to be conservative, I also know my myself. If I were in the midst of cutting a pattern—because let’s be honest, I’m unlikely to spread out my entire yardage and lay out all the pieces first, before cutting into my fabric, because I use weights and a rotary cutter, not pins, and who wants to have to readjust and lay everything out again before doing my cutting—anyway, if I were cutting and I ran out of fabric, I know I’d go to pieces. So I’ll continue to err on the side of caution in my purchasing so that I don’t have to with my cutting.

Of course, this is directly at odds with my desire that every project use exactly as much material as I buy and my abhorrence of just-large-enough-to-feel-wasteful-when-tossing-but-not-really-big-enough-to-be-particularly-useful scraps. I’m working on it.

With the remaining aqua and pink athletic fabric, it seemed sensible to throw in a couple other pieces so that I can mix and match based on the weather, my mood, and what’s currently clean. I intended to make a plain t-shirt and a pair of bike shorts in each color. My attempt at cutting up an thin, holey, and all-around ratty t-shirt to turn into a pattern was a total bust, so I gave up on t-shirts for now and stuck to just shorts.

2016-09-23_01_aqua-shorts

Starting with McCall’s 6173, I:

  • Measured the length of a pair of RTW bike shorts I own and chopped off the leg of the pattern
  • Measured the front and back crotch length of a pair of RTW leggings I own and lowered the waist of the pattern
  • Marked the “outseam” (based on the location of the grainline), drew parallel lines on either side to create a 3-inch-wide stripe, cut along the stripe lines, and then added seam allowances to each piece

I sewed the contrast stripe to the main fabric first, and then assembled the shorts just as I would a pair of leggings.

2016-09-23_02_pink-shorts

For the aqua pair, I also attempted a crotch gusset to try to relieve some of the strain that can happen when you have two seams that meet in a “+.” I used Thread Theory’s tutorial for drafting a gusset and Sewaholic’s tutorial for sewing a gusset.

2016-09-23_03_crotch-gusset-detail

I’m not sure if it was worth it, to be honest. Although I tried drafting the gusset so that it wouldn’t make the crotch roomier, just ease the tension, I feel like the crotch is a bit baggy. And my attempts to follow the Sewaholic tutorial to install the dang thing were downright painful, despite basting on my sewing machine first and then serging to finish. It doesn’t help that the photo for one of the early steps doesn’t show an important snip into the seam allowance. In fairness, there is a note about this omission, and there is a photo much further down that does show the snip, but scrolling back and forth just added to my confusion about what direction to make the cut and how deep. Due to the intense wrangling needed to get the gusset to align with the legs, I ended up putting a hole in the crotch, which I had to sew up by hand, and all the seams came out undeniably wonky. I’m not put off sewing gussets entirely, but I think I’ll wait until I have a pattern designed for one before attempting it again.

And thus marks the end of my activewear sewing for a while. It’s been instructive and added some much needed gear to my wardrobe, but I’m ready to turn my attention to new fabrics, new patterns, and new challenges. Now that my machine is back from a brief stint in a repair shop, I can dive into a heap of Halloween sewing. I can’t wait to share what we’ve got planned this year!