What is it about Christmas that makes us want to sew pajamas? For years, I sewed pajamas for the entire family. Matching pajamas. Every year. When the girls were little I sewed them nightgowns, and I would have a nightgown. My husband would get the full ensemble of the button down pajamas with pants, of course. Then Peter came along. I didn’t like nightgowns, and the girls were getting older. Since one pattern would serve all, we converted to the button down tops and the pj bottoms.
Little by little, the kids lost interest. But, nevertheless, I would press on with the family pajamas. I had to buy more than one bolt of flannel so that I could get enough pajamas for the whole family.
One year, I made a pair of pajamas for my daughter’s boyfriend. They were living together and in a long-term relationship. When they broke up, one of the first things she did was go over to his apartment and take back the pajamas! Needless to say I thought it served him right. Oh well. Now we have that pair and they possibly made it into the rag bag.
Then came the year that I had two new Son-in-Laws. Did that need capitalization? Not sure. I was getting tired of doing all those pajamas so I tried to short cut it. Not a success. What I did was sew the pajama bottoms and purchase tops. I wanted those plain waffle weave undershirts with the long sleeves. Those are not that easy to find. I wanted white for the girls and black for the boys. I found them at Fleet Farm. So I ordered them up in the sizes that should have been appropriate. I then took them to be embroidered. So far, this isn’t sounding like a shortcut. But I thought is was. I had snowflakes embroidered on all of them. When they opened them and went to put them on, they were skin tight!!!! Epic fail.
The following year, I bought all the pajamas from that Pajama-Gram company. I spent $700 on pajamas for the 2 babies, the girls and 2 husbands, Madeline, Peter, my husband and me. They turned out to be not so great even though it was horrifically expensive.
This year, I only sewed for the babies. I haven’t started any yet for any of the adults, although Madeline has already expressed her displeasure with my “not sewing pjs this year”.
I downloaded a pdf pattern for the babies and cut the 18 month size. According to the size guidelines, they should have been just right…just wrong. They would fit a 4 year old. I complained to the pattern designer. She was so nice, and explained that she errs on the side of being a little too big. I hope she fixes that. I cut Stella’s sleeves down and the legs down. Freddy, well, he can wear his next year.
Here are Stella’s pjs.
I don’t care what anyone says. I’m going to call them a success.
