Pyjama trousers – success or failure?

January 8, 2014 by steelyseamstress 4 Comments

I’m writing this after I’ve finished this project. I have been challenged, irritated and disappointed in equal measure, but finally at the end of the project I can say that I have learned heaps.

After cutting out the pattern pieces to a size 10, and starting to sew I discovered that the pyjama trousers were way too narrow. In fact, I had made myself a lovely pair of skin-tight leggings! Strangely, though they were very long. Normally I would say that I am, for a size 10, quite long in the leg, so these strange dimensions rather perplexed me. I also, found that when I started to put the pieces together not all of them lined up properly. For example waistband at the front and the back didn’t appear to line up and the fabric for the bottom border for the trouser legs didn’t seem to be the same width as the width of the pyjamas. Now, this may have been some sort of cutting error on my part, but I checked and checked and couldn’t see what I had done wrong…..  The pyjama trousers are such a simple pattern, it had no notches. If it had, it would have helped to line up the pieces.

To cut a long story short, I gave up using the pattern. After a week, when I couldn’t approach the project without getting annoyed, I looked at it again with fresh eyes and I decided to start from scratch. Fortunately, I am one of those persons who always buy patterns and fabrics way in advance of getting round to projects and I already how a trouser pattern. I traced it onto tracing paper, but making it a size bigger (size 12) as pyjamas should be loose fitting. I also took the darts out as pyjama trousers are elasticated at the waist.

As it turned out, what a stroke of good fortune that I’d bought too much fabric! I still had enough fabric for a new pair!

And hey presto! I constructed this pair of pyjama bottoms and I have a good pattern should I wish to give this another go in the future. I had to ditch the embroidery, much that I liked it, as it was perhaps too busy for the blue checked patterned fabric I was using. However, there is always a next time!