Sometimes, an accident meets an opportunity.
After finishing my stay-in-bed-dress, I looked at the leftover-fabrics, and was fairly surprised at the amount of leftovers I had.
When refashioning existing garnments, the collateral damage is usually not too bad: a shortened hemline here, some snippets of fabric there, but most of the time nothing too major. This time I had quite a serious amount of leftover. But what to do with it? hmmm..
Around the same time, I decided it was an excellent idea to show Joost how good I was at doing somersaults on our couch, while wearing these pyjama-shorts:
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| My only pair of pyjama's! |
My expectations, were -in hindsight- perhaps a tad on the unrealistic side: A perfectly executed somersault. Joost in awe of his flexible and whimsical, yet elegant girlfriend..
Instead.. A ripping sound, followed by a surprising amount of fresh air where I definitely shouldn't have felt it. Joost (the bastard) laughing himself to tears and..
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| uh oh... |
I should have known that doing somersaults was a risk in itself, especially in thin cotton pyjama-bottoms that I had worn since I was about 20 years old... long story short: I no longer owned a pair of pyjama-bottoms.
One look at the damage learned me that there was no way repairing it: years and years of wear had reduced the fabric to being paper-thin and very fragile.
There was only one thing for it: sacrifice! However: while I couldn't use the fabric for anything else than cleaning rags, I could use the pattern! So, I cut out a back and front panel as neatly as I could..
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| and shortened them, because that knee-length wasn't doing me any favours anyway. |
and here my left-over fabric came into play!
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| Using my old pyjama as a pattern, I simply cut out two front panels, two back panels, both with enough fabric at the top for a waistband. |
I know quite a lot of people are a bit scared of making trousers. But it really is quite simple!
step 1 - start with two frontpanels ( the ones with the smaller curve), and two back panels ( the bigger curve) For pyjama's you don't need to cut a separate waistband.
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| The sideseam. I added a little split just for fun! |
step 3: You now have two pieces consisting of a back- and frontpanel, joined at the outer seam. Close the inside legseam as well on both pieces, so you have two separate 'legs'.
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| Like so! But don't sew those curvy bits yet! |
step 4: Then take both your 'leg-pieces', and pin then together at the crotch-seam: frontpanel to frontpanel, and backpanel to backpanel. make sure al your fabric is facing right sides together, so you don't end up with rough edges on the outside of your trousers.
Sew the entire crotch-seam, and strengthen it with a double of of zig-zag stitching ( to avoid any future mishaps involving somersaults and couches).
that's the basic shape of your trousers done! Now al that is left to do, are the finishing touches.
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| I placed a little square of fabric on the right side of the fabric, and stitched/ cut a narrow opening... |
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| pushed the fabric through the hole.. |
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| And voila, a neatly finished hole for the drawstring! |
I filded over the top to create a tunnel for the drawstring, and hemmed the bottom...
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| It severely needs a drawstring, though |
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| And because I wanted the comfort of both a drawstring and elastic, I pieced together a "hybrid" drawstring. |
I threaded the drawstring through and secured it in two places, so the elastic would stay in place, even when you untie the drawstring.
And that's it!
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| Behold the new pyjama-bottoms! |
Are they comfy? Yes they are.
Are they somersault-proof? I sure hope so
Will I enjoy many lazy weekends in them? Most certainly.
Will I sneakily wear them during my video-conference-meetings? .... I can't exclude that possibility ;)
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| Voila! Towards endless cups of tea. |
Hope you enjoyed it!
Sneaky!
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