Wednesday 14 January 2015

Craftmas '14; Sleepwear for the Beau

Firstly, please excuse the pretentious wording of the title; I know that using fancy words to refer to you partner is considered annoying in the social media world (or perhaps just when it comes from angsty teens who think they have the world figured). Still, it sounded better than 'jimjams for my boyf'.

I'd like to open this blog saying that I hope everyone has had a fantastic Christmas and a wonderful New Year. I hope you drank your weight in alcohol, ate enough food to satisfy a small army and indulged in self satisfaction at your heaps of glorious gifts, thinly veiled under the guise of 'Christmas spirit' and 'gratitude'.

Normally I'd write a blog dedicated to the crafting gifts I'd been given, but as I got just the one this year, I'll include it here. It was a 'knit and crochet' kit of a 'Mr & Mrs Snowman' by Winterworks (no, I've never heard of them either). It came complete with needles and hook (although, after reading the instructions, I realised multiple sizes of both were needed, which were not included) plus all the stuffing, yarn and polystyrene balls for the heads. It's a really cute little set and the instructions seem easy enough to follow, with the exception of the crochet pattern being in US terms (although it's mostly increases, decreases and DC(sc), so figuring out what stitch I was meant to be doing wasn't over difficult). I was pretty pleased with this as I'd really like to improve my crochet skills. I finished the body and scarf of Mr Snowman (he's crochet, while Mrs is knitted) over the Christmas period and started his hat before I realised I had more pressing matters (i.e., university assignments) to attend to. From what I've done so far though it's really fun; it's simple enough that you can still engage with your family or watch TV, making it perfect for the Christmas period. Even though the Christmas period is well and truly over, I'd like to at least finish him (if not his lady friend) over winter. I mean, hey, snowmen are wintery as much as Christmassy, right?


My snowman thus far.
Now, I apparently can't go one holiday season without making something for someone down the line, although this year was significantly less stressful and I had everything finished with more than twelve hours to spare (mainly because I was working on one gift instead of three.) Given that my immediate family all received knitted gifts last year, I felt it was only fitting that my boyfriend get a home made present this year. The fact it was sewn was less me choosing a craft and more me choosing a suitable gift; daft as it sounds, I've been pestering my boyfriend to get pyjamas for months (he'd complain that work clothes weren't comfortable in the evening; I said he needed pyjamas or 'indoor' clothes, which are just comfy and for sitting about it). He actually did buy some in October, November time and realise that, yes, pyjamas have their place after a long, tiring day.

So, he only had one pair. That meant when they needed washing, he had nothing. Simple answer? I'd get him (make him) some new pyjamas for Christmas. Well, okay, that's only half true. On discussing it with my mum, she pointed out that pyjamas trousers are incredibly simple to make but t-shirts; well, while not the hardest thing in the world, they're not dead easy either. Hence, I made some pyjama bottoms and bought a t-shirt to go with. (Hey, I had a lot of university work that I was meant to be concentrating on!)

My mum bought the fabric; there's some nice fabric shops near her, whereas there's only really one place in my city that sells fabric that I know of. That, and she knows more about how much and what type of fabric I wanted. She sent me some images of various different fabrics and we picked a charming red tartan. She brought it up a few weeks later when she was visiting our local Christmas market, along with the paper patter for a generic set of loose fitting, unisex trousers. According to mum (and she's not wrong), as long as you get the shape of the crotch right, everything will work.

Now, I know it's hardly a ground breaking project this one; it's neither my best knitting project, nor my technically best sewing project. So why am I really quite proud of this one? Well, for one, it was completely my own. There was no mum, no friends, no one around to help me or point me in the right direction. There's a pattern for pyjama trousers in my book Sewing Made Simple by Tessa Evelegh, which was sat on the living room floor through out the entire crafting process but I didn't open it once. This project was all me; no pointers, no tips, no help, from people or books or the internet.

Given that I've only had a sewing machine for less than a year and in that time I've managed a total of three projects, including this one, I'm pretty pleased with myself. Although, I confess, I did have to reread the sewing machine manual as it had been so long since I'd last used it that I had entirely forgotten how to set it up.

Sort out your crotch...
There's not a great deal to say regarding construction. My first task was to decide which side of the fabric I wanted to be the outside. Then I folded it, pinned the paper pattern to the fabric and cut (to those who don't understand sewing; it was folded so that each leg is a piece in it's own right, with one inner leg seam, rather than each leg being made out of two pieces of fabric each, with inner and outer leg seams). Repeat for second leg. Sew inner leg seams. Sew crotch (that was interesting, trying not to sew the crotch to the leg and get a smooth, rounded finish). At this point I noticed that the trouser legs were extremely baggy; fitting over me wearing my thick, fluffy pyjamas; I took to narrowing them, using my boyfriend's current pyjama trousers as a guide. I must have taken off about two inches on each leg, but it gave a much neater fit.

Working out leg width.
After this I then had to include the drawstring. This was a bit confusing for me at first, trying to work out where to put the hole for the drawstring to actually exit from. Normally, I'm sure this is what I've seen, drawstrings come out of two holes, one for each end, either side of the front seam. That seemed like an awful lot of hassle though, as I knew cutting the fabric would mean I'd have to hand sew around, to stop fraying. Plus, once it's cut, it's cut. Too big a risk, so I opted for (the not unknown) single hole. I unpicked a portion of the seam at the front; given that I'd already left a couple of cm when initially sewing it, I realised that by sewing these down it would given the opening a soft, closed off edge. Perfect. No cut fabric to fray and much sleeker looking to boot. Unpicking, lining up, resewing; it took a bit of faffing around and was probably the most time consuming/difficult aspect of the trousers, but it worked. The drawstring was just a white cotton ribbon, that I had tied knots into, then pulled apart any ribbon remaining at the end. I actually sewed the waistband with the drawstring already in place (which runs the risk of sewing the drawstring to the pyjamas; although I was careful and managed to not do this) because I really could not be bothered with threading it through.

After that the only remaining the to do was decide length and sew the cuffs. The way I'd cut it from the fabric wasn't the most conservative, as they ended up having about a foot extra of length, but I'd rather have been wasteful and got the right length, than not and risk them being too short. Once again, I used the other pyjama bottoms to determine length; when I tried them on myself they were the perfect length... Which is too long for my dear, height impaired boyfriend (eesh, I'm taller by about two inches, never mind the fact that my legs are long. I think I forgot this in this in the heat of realising the living room was covered in fabric, pins and thread and he was due home in half an hour). It was quite entertaining as I didn't cut off any of the excess fabric to begin with (just in case I made them too short), so when I held them up after sewing the cuff they looked just as long... The excess fabric was longer than the cuff/seam, so was hanging out of the bottom. Quickly realising that was the issue, I got the scissors and snipsnip. Done.

Stop, pyjama time!
Project complete. There really wasn't much else to do after that, apart from hide all the evidence (at which point I realised two pins were missing and the last thing I wanted was to have to explain where it came from when he stood on one). Overall, despite the simplicity of the project, I'm really rather content with the finished object. I think my boyfriend likes them too, which is always a bonus (and, trust me, my boyfriend would tell me if he didn't). A successful gift, I believe.

The facts and figures. I believe 3m of fabric was bought and used (very little left over), with a deep red thread left over from a previous project. It took around six hours from cutting to putting away (or, episodes 18-22 of Charmed, season six). Paper pattern, which was the single shape 'front pants', was taken from Very Easy Vogue, 9288. This is now considered a 'vintage' pattern apparently. Sorry mum, hope that doesn't make you feel too old.