I have completed my first official project of 2021! This was a completely new project from cut to finish, rather than something that’s been in my to do pile for a while (I’ll get to those, but it’s fun for the first make to be something completely new and different!).

I can’t say why I chose the Carolyn Pajama Pattern from Closet Core Patterns as my first project of 2021, but I have been planning to make them for a while. I had the fabric all picked out: a ridiculous lumberjack/mountain main/camper fabric that I saw in the garment district in August 2019, regretted not buying and then tracked down on the internet. Turns out there’s a whole slew of “pin up” fabrics by Alexander Henry, and they are all super kitschy in the very best way possible. My initial idea for the fabric was a super girly dress to juxtapose the men, but then I realized that I couldn’t really ever wear it anywhere (you can’t wear this to work when you teach middle school!), so pajamas seemed like a much more practical idea.

I’ve been procrastinating on getting this started for a long time, and I realized it’s because I really wanted to do a piping detail… and I had no piping. I quickly ordered some, and suddenly I had all the motivation in the world to get this done! I got started shortly after the New Year and made quick work of the shorts. I had fun trying to pattern match along the seams with piping. As you can see in the images below, I was more successful in some places rather than others, but I am overall happy with the final result. I’m not generally a person who gives too much thought to pattern matching, so for an initial stab at it, this is pretty good.

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I was able to make up the shorts very quickly, even with the piping detail which I meticulously measured out to make sure it was in the right spot.

I procrastinated for a day or two on the top, not wanting to deal with buttonholes and facings, but once I tried on the shorts I was eager to finish the project. And while the top went together slower than the shorts, there was nothing involved that I wasn’t already familiar with. The piping was a tad trickier here as it had to go around some curves but otherwise nothing too difficult. I did omit the pocket though as I didn’t want it to block the faces on the print (nor do I really need a breast pocket on a pair of pajamas so it would’ve been just for show anyway). The pocket would’ve been right where the lumberjack in the red plaid shirt is. I suppose I could’ve pattern matched it somehow, but that seemed like more work than was really worth it, if I’m being completely honest.

The final product is a fun pair of pajamas that I know I will get a ton of use out of!

Challenge Updates

For each of my projects, I am going to try and update the various instagram sewing challenges I am participating in. There will likely be some overlap!

This year I chose to do nine fabrics again for my Make Nine, and this was one of the fabrics that made the list. I’ll try to keep it updated as I go along (because you know I’ll veer away and use other fabrics that aren’t on this list at some point; in fact, my current WIP doesn’t use any of them!).

The next is #sewingprints2021, hosted by @romy.kate. This is a fun stash-busting challenge that works like a bingo board. The goal here for me is not necessarily to finish it, but to do as many as possible. This one was easy: it’s a print with people!

Then finally we have #sewingbingo2021 which I also did last year (and really need to figure out my round up for that one, since I kind of let it fall by the wayside at some point). However, the pajamas fit multiple categories, but I like to pick one for each project. I ended up deciding on “long time coming” since I bought this fabric over a year ago and probably had my pajama idea for it all ready to go since early last year.

Now I’m feeling motivated to just keep on sewing, and looking forward to sharing all that I make this year! To see more progress photos, follow me on instagram at @sewfancybrooklyn!