Christmas Pajamas 2012

I know, I know…. WAY too late for Christmas posts, right? Well I promise this is still relevant.

It was the day before we were to leave for our Christmas trip up north and I had been sewing late (LATE) nights the whole week getting ready for presents and some winter Bean clothes, when I realized that I hadn’t made any Christmas PJs for her. Yikes!

I had no ideas and no chance to get to the fabric store so it was going to have to be something I could whip up quickly with what I had. I have a legging pattern that I drafted a while back which has been a big savings. It’s a little crazy how easy it is to make a pair of leggings. I can make three or four pair (including the fabric cutting!) in a short Bean nap. And that’s if I don’t use my serger. So I thought I could alter the pattern a bit to make some cute Christmas bottoms. There are lots of tutorials out there for making leggings – Made by Rae comes to mind first – so I won’t go into that here. What I did to change them up was to sew together the back pieces first and then sew ruffles on the bum. Not entirely original (doesn’t EVERYONE do ruffles on the bum, hehe), but I love the look.

I also widened the leg at the bottom a bit and made a little cuff with the same fabric I used for the ruffles.

Once I knew I wanted to do a legging bottom, I thought I’d use knit fabric for the top to keep everything comfy cosy. The problem was that I didn’t have any cute Christmasy knit fabric on hand. So I turned to the Go To Signature Dress pattern and made some changes to fit with the fabrics I had.

The Signature Dress is a great pattern that allows for many different lengths, styles, sleeve types, and other modifications, but it is meant to be used with stretchy knits. I wanted to use the cute fabric I had used for the ruffles and cuffs on the leggings, but that is quilting cotton.

So I decided to make the sleeves and collar out of the white knit fabric and the rest of the dress (with an additional flutter sleeve) out of the green Christmasy cotton fabric.

The “dress” is the tunic length with no elastic or shirring at the waist or chest. The only issue with using the quilting cotton is that the Signature Dress uses the stretchiness of the knit fabric to go over the head and even with the knit collar, the cotton doesn’t budge enough to fit.

So (and here is where this Christmas-heavy post finally gets relevant, hehe) I used the existing shoulder seam to sew in a mini snap placket.

It opens just enough to get Bean’s head through and when closed is hardly noticeable. I used this collar method to make another quilting cotton Signature top that I love. I think it’s a great addition to an already handy pattern to own!