My Jammies

Well, I'm a day late and a jammie top short, but here they are:

No, I will not be modeling these!  The slinky fabric of the bottoms is just way too revealing, and the old tee shirt I found to go with them is too tight to fit a bra under!  Which actually makes it good for sleeping - my old jammie top was so loose that it would twist around my torso in the night and I found myself constantly readjusting it.

Why the old tee shirt?  Well, I totally messed up the top and just didn't have the gumption to fix it or redo it.  The whole project just gave me trouble all the way through.  At first I was disappointed, but once I put this old top with the bottoms, I really liked how they went together.  And since one of my goals was to use up old stuff to make these, this top fit in.

Things were going pretty well with these pants until I got to the waistband.  The first problem I had  was that my buttonholer didn't want to work on this very sheer burnout knit, even though I fused two layers of tricot interfacing to the inside.  The first buttonhole went OK, but I ended up having to finish off the second one by hand.  It doesn't really show though when the bow is tied.

And then my machine just didn't want to sew the two lines of narrow zig zag I needed to create the elastic casings.  I had to pick them out three times!  But then, Hubby came to the rescue with an awesome anniversary present:

Gah!!  My very own coverstitch machine!  I'd been over at my friend Alicia's earlier last week and we played around with hers.  When I got home I told Hubby I wanted one too, and he bought it for me the very next day!  I told you he's a keeper!

I used the chain stitch to sew those casing lines - easy peasy and perfect first time:

outside

inside

For the center casing,  instead of elastic I used some old twill tape I had laying around that happened to match exactly with the tee shirt.  I'm pretty proud of how neat the ends are - I used that fusible web to fold back and secure twice before stitching.  That stuff has changed my life!!

Everything else was constructed on the serger, as I am wont to do:

And as in my original jammies, I finished the hem with a three-thread overlock (don't I sound all technical?!):

Normally I would think this is a cheater's finish and would go for a hem, but here I sort of like it.  It gives a little bit of contrast to that vast expanse of lavender and has a very casual feel.

I wore the new jammies last night for the first time, and they're quite comfortable.  I'm glad I finally found a use for this fabric.  I still have a little bit left and I'm thinking about making a simple tank out of it to go with these bottoms, but for now I'm happy to wear the old tee shirt.  I'm also happy that I made these almost entirely from stuff I already had.  The only thing I had to buy was the elastic!