Goodnight, Sleep Tight

Back in June I bought some fabric for pjs for the boys.  In July I bought some fabric for new pillow cases for them.  I did get the pillow cases sewn up a few weeks ago, and then the pjs just the other day.  I don't know why I waited so long, especially because I was making summer pjs, but oh well, what's the saying?  A day late and a dollar short or something like that?  Story of my life. Ha ha!

So now that the weather is cooling down, if the forecast is to be believed, the menfolk in the house all have matching short summer pj sets.  I picked up the fabric on a trip to Marshall's/Northwest Fabric in the city.  I haven't been to that store in years, mostly because the last times I've gone I've not been overly impressed.  However, they've changed things up a bit there, at least in terms of their cottons.  Last time I had been you couldn't buy less than a metre of anything, but now their minimum cut is .5m, so that's a bit better.  They also now have a huge selection of what I call "the good stuff".  Name brands - the ones I see online but can never find at Fabricland - of course those name brands come with a hefty price tag.  A lot of the prints are upwards of $18/metre.  Yikes!  But when you factor in exchange and shipping, if I was to order online I suppose it would end up probably the same, or close anyways these days.

However, I did luck in that day back in June and as I went to get a half yard cut of the fabric I'd chosen I spied a shopping cart filled with rolls of Pokemon fabric.  I asked and the clerk told me they were $5.00/m and were that cheap because they were seconds.  I found the one I liked best and took a look.   I am not sure what was considered seconds about it, the print looked good, I couldn't see any flaws, so I picked up a couple of metres.

I brought the fabric home, washed it up and planned to get started right away, but I couldn't decide on what to do about a top because I knew I didn't have enough Pokemon fabric for tops and shorts.  Plus the boys always like me to make (BF)G pjs to match theirs.  In the end I grabbed a couple of $3.00 muscle shirts from Walmart.  One in (BF)G's size for his pair and then a 3xl to cut up for the fabric for the boys.  Only the boys have grown.  A lot.  I can no longer get two shirts out of one anymore, and so I had to go on a search for fabric again. Last week I did find a shirt that I'd bought the wrong size of for (BF)G a few years ago sitting in Little Man's closet for about ten years from now when he would grow into it and decided I could sacrifice it for the pj set.  I finally got the pjs done.

They boys are happy.
I think they'd pretty much given up hope on ever getting their Pokemon Pjs

I used an older version of Simplicity #1605 for the shorts.  (The only difference between my version which has a different number and the current version is the picture on the pattern envelope is switched around and the people are different) and then for the little boys I used Fishsticks Designs free tank top pattern.  Both patterns are ridiculously quick to sew.  (Again.  Why did I wait so long to make these up????)  Since I was so late in the summer getting these done, I went with slightly bigger sizes than I might have had I made them at the beginning of the summer like I'd planned.  Little Man's are a size 8 top and boys medium bottoms, Baby Boy has the size 6 top and boys size small bottoms.  I am really hoping that means they'll still fit by the time next summer rolls around.

About a month ago I also finally sewed up the long pj pants for (BF)G that I'd bought fabric for about two years ago.  They were a disaster.  Not sure if you can see it in the photo, but there's an odd little "design feature" with the waist tie at centre back.

These will be racing right into the donation box!

(BF)G politely waited a few days before mentioning that something seemed a bit off on the fit.  I'd already noticed something looked a bit off, but after all.  It's the pattern I've been sewing for him since about 2006, so what could go wrong?  I couldn't figure it out and then he asked, "Did you sew them backwards?  They feel like they're on backwards".  Well crap.  That's exactly what I did.  The buttonholes for the waist ties are neatly sewn centre back, not centre front.  So I undid the waist casing, put a couple of properly placed button holes in and re-threaded the ties with the added "design feature" where they show on the centre back. Except the fabric - which was sold as 100% cotton obviously has a really high polyester content and has no natural give to it so they are really not very comfortable even the right way around and to top it off I made them a bit too small.  They're headed for the goodwill I think - maybe someone else in the world will find them useful.

I mentioned pillow cases.  I'm really happy with how they turned out!  I used the same tutorial I used for the boys Transformers pillow cases in the spring and it has got to be the easiest method EVER!  My only hang up is that no matter how many times I do French seams I always end up doing at least one the wrong way and sewing right sides together for the first pass instead of wrong sides together.  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  This time I think I did two of them that way.  On the same pillow case none the less.  You'd think I'd learn.  All that aside, the end result was great, the quilt cotton is super soft and snuggly feeling (unlike the solid cotton I used for the transformers pillows that not only collect lint and fuzz like nobody's business, the boys claim that they are scratchy.)  I'll definitely be making more pillow cases in the future!  And maybe I'll even remember to do my French seams correctly the first time! (probably not, but hope springs eternal)

I adore this "Canadiana" and camping print -
although I hope that if I'm camping those creatures aren't coming that close to my tent...
especially that bear.  Stay away bear, stay away!

I was going to save writing up this blog post until I had some new pjs too, but my pjs currently look like this :

No where near done

Not even close to being finished. Or started for that matter.  I've not even finished cutting out the shorts pattern let alone chosen fabric for them.  The pattern is Purl Bee's City Gym Shorts and the top is EYMM's Everyday Essentials Cami.  The problem is the fabric for the top.  I'd bought a yard of it a few months ago from Girl Charlee intending to make another Jocole Yoga Skirt.  But then the fabric arrived and it's pretty much paper thin, with almost no recovery in the stretch.  I was pretty annoyed about it, but figured it's saving grace is that it is super soft so would be comfy for pjs, but now that I've cut it out, I've completely lost interest in the entire project because my annoyance with the fabric has been renewed.  We'll see what happens.  For the time being I think I'm just going to be putting the whole kit and caboodle into the bin on my desk I have for WIP and ignore it for a bit.  I'm going to focus on working on some different projects instead.  And maybe when the annoyance fades I'll sew up the pjs for myself.