Pajama Time!

Whoa, it's been a whirlwind of a week/weekend for me, but I wanted to post this great gift idea that I think lots of you could do (well, those of you with just a little bit of sewing experience).

I spent almost all of January, okay, some of January, making my very first item of clothing, from a pattern: Pajamas!

Now who doesn't love pajamas? And it gets even better, they were kid's pajamas! I had a certain adorable little boy in mind when I made these for a gift, and it turns out I didn't have to be so scared of this pattern after all. Check out the results!

The only other thing I have ever used a pattern for is a jacket for a small dog. It was my very first sewing project ever, and it turned out terrible. Since then I have, for the most part, just navigated my way in sewing without patterns, and I hadn't ever attempted to make actual clothing, maybe just adorn pre-made clothing with appliques. But this, THIS was different! It was like the first time I made cookies from scratch and realized, Wow! I can really do this!

Here is the pattern I used:

If you click on the image, you can see it is available on Amazon, but I am sure you can probably find it or something similar at a fabric store. It was a fairly easy to follow pattern (not that I have followed many patterns before anyway!) but for me it certainly wasn't "fast". I would say that I will try this pattern again, most likely the variation for the girl's nightgown.

If you decide to try this, or if you are thinking about making another piece of clothing from scratch, here are some tips:

1) Make sure you have enough fabric and the correct type of fabric, sometimes the pattern tells you to buy something else called "interfacing". You should buy it and use it. I didn't however, because that's just my style, I thought I could just wing it and be cool, but I probably should have just listened to the directions :)

2) Press your seams and folds with your iron, I had never done this before and always wondered why my stuff looked sloppy....once again, it's just a following directions thing for me. In this area I did, and it helped tremendously!!

3) You may need help from your significant other or another male in your life, because sometimes it takes an architechtual mind to figure out how to sew something inside out and have it make sense once you turn it right side out! The pictures in the directions are nice, but not perfect

4) Don't be afraid of the buttonhole maker on your sewing machine, YouTube how to use it if you don't already know how, it's waaaaaaaay easier than you think!

So there you have it, I made something with my sewing machine that I have never made before! It was a roller coaster ride of emotions, but I am so glad I tried something new, it taught me so much. I've said it before and I'll say it again, just go for it! If there's something you want to try don't worry about it being perfect, just go ahead and do it!

Happy Sewing!!