Pyjama Party

I was disappointed last year when I missed Karen's Pyjama party so as soon as she posted it was time again for another Pyjama Party - Tofino Style I jumped in.

 

I really liked the look of the Sewaholic's Tofino pattern and was wondering where I could get one from closer to home when Sandra pointed me in the direction of Sew Squirrel who stocks a huge range of indi patterns and the prices are exceptional.  I placed the order on the Friday before the long weekend and the pattern was in my hands on the Tuesday, now that is service.

My stash contained 2 pieces of fabric that had been earmarked for pyjamas, a cotton with cute owls on it

and a flannelette,

both purchased from Spotlight.

When I laid the fabric out on the cutting table I realised it was only 100cm wide, so either short pjyamas or find some contrast fabric to make use of the side panels of the Tofino pattern.

As both pairs are for the winter months (flannelette for home and the cotton for a centrally heated lodge) I wanted them to be long and I chose to make up the cotton pair first.

As we all know Sewaholic patterns are drafted for those generously sized around the hips, so even though my waist measurement put me in a size 4 for the waist, I was a size 0 for the hips.

The finished measurement for the size 4 waist was going to be far too large, so I chose to start with the size 2 waist and then graded back to 0 from the hips down as per Karen's helpful post.

It wasn't until I put these on when I was fitting the elastic, that I realised they were still rather large around the waist and hips.

At this point I was rather glad that I didn't use the piping on either side of the side panels as per the pattern suggestion because I took off the waistband and took 1.5cm off each vertical seam (x4) and then took a bit more out of the back crotch seam at the waist, tapering to nothing just above the curve.

These are long, even with the 5.5cm hem, I still cut off another 4cm.

These were finished on Sunday night in time for Karen's party, but as my home is not centrally heated, I have been a bit slow in getting the photos taken in a light cotton pyjamas.

Have to have bed socks!

Here they are flat on the bed

After seeing all the wonderful pyjama sets that everyone has made I realised that quite a few have added a Sorbetto  pyjama top, so maybe with the leftovers from the two cottons above (spots and owls), you might see a pyjama top to go with the pants at some time.

Now I've had a sewing fix, it is back to working on the pants muslins!

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Stash Out:  13.75m

Stash In:  2.5

Sydney Sewers High Tea

During the cold, windy and wet afternoon last Sunday, there was a lot of chatter about fabrics, patterns and sewing dilemmas during High Tea at Level 14

A huge thank you to Kristy for organising the event and it was so good to see some new faces amongst the group.

I definitely won't win a prize for my photography but here are a few photos of the group after the lovely food had arrived.

Christy has a lot more photos to share and a list of all who attended, thank you for sharing this information.

I wore my Audrey dress and my Channel inspired jacket from a few years ago. 

I wonder where the next occasion will be, Christy did mention a pub!

All packed up ...

and heading off to our sewing weekend.

This was last Saturday morning and after hubby had loaded the car for me I drove to the Mercure Hotel at Parramatta to meet up with 14 of my real life sewing buddies to sew and chat all weekend!

Here we are all busy and if you look closely you can see my trench coat hanging on the window sill at the back of the room.

At this stage the trench still had 18 steps to do in no particular order and those with a line through them were completed during the weekend.

- finish pockets
- secure pockets to seams

- install grommets on storm flaps both front and back

- attach back facing

- work out how to put zip in curved collar

- if work out then finish hood and install

- make collar and attach the Burda way

- make carriers for belt and sleeve carriers

- set in sleeves

- add batting to sleeve cap

- attach carriers

- baste piping around facings

- press hems in place

- attach lining - already made - basted in as I wanted to see how it looked :)

- handstitch/sew hems

- sew on buttons

- make belt for coat

- make straps for sleeves 

I spent Saturday morning making various collar prototypes trying to work out how to  put the chunky metal zipper into the curved collar for the hood.  No matter how much pressing and shaping of the zipper tape I did, I couldn't get it to fit the curve of the collar so that idea has been scrapped, so my trench doesn't have a hood, but I can live with that.

The remainder of the weekend was spent completing the other steps and here is how the trench looks at present:

There are still quite a few steps to do on the trench and they are going to take some time.  

Thank you ladies for a wonderful weekend of laughter, shared experiences and knowledge, it was a lot of fun!!

Not much other sewing has been going on besides the pants muslins but I have decided to join the Pyjama Party over at Did you make that? as I am in need of some new winter PJ's as well as a lighter pair for when we head to the snow as our accommodation is centrally heated and I definitely don't need my flannel PJ's then.

Is anyone else sewing along?

Red

So last Friday was the last day of MMM '13 and the theme for our photo was "red".

As soon as I saw this I just knew where I wanted my photo to be!

The owner of this house is painting this wonderful scene on the side of their home and every day when I see it I smile, I just love the cuteness of these characters and if anyone can tell me if they have an origin I would appreciate it.

Thank you Jonathon for the photo!

I am wearing:

Top: Kwik.Sew 3740 cowl neck top in white/toffee/red/brown knit, previously worn on day 5.
Skirt: Burda 04-2009-101 in burgundy corduroy made in May 2012.
Accessory: Purchased gold band choker with burgundy stone drop pendant and me-made earrings.
Tights: Black tights.
Boots:  Betts black boots.

I have a confession to make, the photo below was taken earlier in the month when it was warmer and a lot less traffic (this is on a very busy road during peak hour) and I was feeling a bit self conscious when DH took this photo in the middle of the day, however it shows you more of the wall.

Wrap-up

You can all breath a sigh of relief, Me Made May has now finished!

There were an amazing 412 members all with varying degrees of commitment to how much Me Made they would wear a day or week.  There are quite a few patterns I now want to try!

It got a bit difficult as the weather cooled, but I did manage to stick to my pledge of "only wearing me made items" but this did cause quite a few repeats for skirts and tops however I did manage not to repeat an outfit which I was very pleased about.

So what did I learn this time around:

• Again like last year cardigans are what I was missing, particularly a navy one!
• I tried some different colour combinations and was very pleased with the looks, now I need to continue experimenting and not to fall into the comfortable.
• For the first time in my sewing life, my casual wardrobe is much larger than my work wardrobe as I have to replace some pants (you have seen the muslin's) and skirts which I didn't get around to doing before May started.

Thank you all for putting up with the daily post, hopefully back to some sort of normality now.