Pajamas two ways

Recently I went on a weekend away with some girlfriends. We were sharing a hotel room, so of course fancy pajamas were in order. I wanted traditional piped pjs, and went with Butterick 6296, a Lisette pattern for Misses' Button-Down Tops, Elastic-Waist Shorts and Pants.

Pattern image courtesy of Butterick Patterns

The nighttime version
I chose some pretty grey cabbage rose print fabric from Mood got to work. I didn't make a muslin, but I *did* compare them to pajamas that I already owned as I was sewing them up. This ended up being a good thing, because the legs on the pajama bottoms are very long and needed to be shortened quite a bit (If you make these, measure those babies before sewing the cuffs on!).

I finished my new pjs and wore them to my girls weekend and loved them sooo much- I wished that I could wear them all day long, especially the top! When I got home, I knew what my next project would be- a daywear version of the pajama top.

The daytime version
I used the same pattern to make the daywear version- the slouchy comfy look suits my lifestyle. I chose a lightweight silk for the body, and silk crepe for the piping... have you ever made bias cut flat silk piping? If you have not, count yourself lucky- it presented a multitude of time consuming issues from slipperiness to instability, and was difficult to get onto the top in a respectable manner.

My process for the bias piping ended being as follows:

1. Cut the strips on the bias, wider than you need them to be.
2. Fold and press the strips in half, and then trim to your needed width
3. Mark your seam line on the folded silk. You must use chalk for this, as a marker bleeds terribly and makes your seam line indistinguishable
4. Baste bias strips in place by hand
5. sew strips in place one one piece of fabric with sewing machine 
6. Place other fabric piece on top, pin very securely in place, flip over and sew on top of initial seam line

Even using this process, I had a few bad spots! In the future I would probably hand baste the folded strips before attaching them to anything, just to keep them folded well.

A few other notes about this project- 

Instead of using traditional interfacing, I used flesh-toned silk crepe. I was convinced that if I used white or off-white interfacing it would be very obvious because the silk was very slightly sheer- although in hindsight I doubt that would be the case, it worked out fine and the interfacing is definitely not obvious.

I stabilized the button holes with tear-away stabilizer- even with two layers of silk and on elf silk crepe interfacing, I felt that they needed some support. It was my first time using tear-away stabilizer, and I am hooked!

Styling a pajama top for the daytime...

I see women on the internet and in magazines wearing full on pajama sets out in public; while I love this look, that isn't my life. I chose to style my pajama top with shorts, flip flops and a simple black fold-over clutch. The top is a little dressy, so I like to balance that out for every-day wear with some casual-ness. I think this would make a great out-to-dinner look with soft slouchy wide-leg pants as well.

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