S1302: Mix’n’Match Tofino’s

Time for something easy to sew, thank you very much – there was a time not so very long ago I thought that if I even sewed a cushion cover in the next year, that would be too much, too soon. Couture techniques and hand sewing have been (temporarily) banished from the realm… and lets not even talk about this new law being 1 garment too late!

These are the Sewaholic Tofino pj pants, and there were gasps of shock at Social Sewing when I asked to use one of several overlockers hauled to GJs for sewing with on the day…. I’d honestly forgotten such a machine even exists!

I’ve got a fair bit of Liberty in my stash, but criminally – I’ve yet to sew with hardly any of it. I got these gorgeous prints from Mill Rose in Ballan – they have easily the biggest range of Liberty I’ve EVER seen in person. They have virtually every print, in every colour way, on the shelf and readily available for petting. It’s worthy of a bit of hyperventilation. The front tie and the piping are from silk satin from the stash – there was the perfect amount of silk leftover from the cuffs on my silk robe, which matched wonderfully.

I absolutely adore this print/colour combo. Crazy how here the silk looks like a dirty yellow… but more lime green on my robe!

Were it not for the fact that Sewaholic patterns are designed for a body shape that I’m very definitely not, that would probably be the end of this post. However, there was two full sizes between my hip and waist measurements. Really, I should have just bought a Vogue/McCalls pj pattern, but hey – I got caught up in the hype back when this was released and bought this against my better judgment. I’m sure I’m not the only person to have ever done that…

So because old habits die really, really hard (or in my case, not at all) – I wearable muslined them in a super cute cherry blossom print flannelette, with pink piping. Here they are, in a straight size 8 which according to the Sewaholic Size Table, I match from the hips down (I measured a 12 at the waist):

Desperate need for a Flat Butt Adjustment going on there. I think that photo just put to bed my life long dream of being a professional pyjama-bottom modeller!!! hehe.

Ahem. For my liking there is way too much baggy space at the back, and the wide-leg just a tad too wide for my shape.

So a few adjustments were in order.
– I shortened the leg length by a ridiculous number of inches (I did that before I cut the flannelette ones)
– I removed the widening taper of the side panel, so they are straight up and down (rather than getting slightly larger towards the ankle)
– I reduced leg width by taking out fabric from the seam between the side panel and the pants back… around about 4 inches all up. Probably about an inch too much, really. This simultaneously made the leg a little slimmer and fixed my need for a Flat Butt Adjustment.

Confession time – so I may have lied a little about the overlocker thing. I overlocked the side seams of my cutesy flannelette pj pants… but I totally frenched the seams on my liberty pj pants. Guilty as charged.

I did a quick test on some scraps to make sure it would work with the piping in it – no dramas there so I moved on. It should be stated that making your own piping is boring prospect. I’d buy over DIY if you can!

I think the amount of rise on these pants is just about perfect.

The instructions would have you tie your tie around the two non-functional button holes sewn into the waist band. I reinforced my buttonhole then ended up sewing the silk tie to that reinforced section so it can’t be lost in the wash.

If I were to make these again, I would not sew the two tie pieces together, and instead sew them to my waistband reinforcing on the opposite side of the buttonhole… so there is zero strain on the buttonhole, like you see below. It’s a pretty long tie and has a surprising amount of weight to it.

Otherwise, I now have three perfectly good pairs of lounge-about-the-house pants, doubling as pyjama pants when I need to stay overnight somewhere. Because I’m one of those people that would rather take the risk of getting caught out if there’s ever an emergency in the middle of the night…