Mr. Sandman.

With the onset of cold weather and shorter days, it's hibernation season here in Illinois, especially on weekends. If I don't have anywhere to be, chances are I'm lounging around at home in my pajamas. 

With one exception, my lounge wear consists of raggy old t-shirts and yoga pants.  I've always had too many necessary items on my sewing list to tackle comfortable, cute pajamas and lounge clothes. I've focused my sewing energy on clothes that get worn outside the house and continue to wear hideously embarrassing cozy clothes while I'm home.  The more productive I become with sewing, the more apparent the gaps in my me-made wardrobe become, and it seems plain silly not to fill them. 

Joann fabric released this Tardis fabric over the summer, and the instant I saw it, I knew I wanted to sew Tardis Carolyn Pajamas. I'm not the sort of person who wears novelty print fabrics  on the regular, but I can definitely get down with novelty print Pjs. 

This was my first time using a Closet Case pattern. The experience was good. The PDF went together easily; however, this pattern is LONG. I'm fairly certain it took me longer to put the pattern together than it did to cut and sew these pajamas. I kept reminding myself that I was assembling pieces for two garments, a top and a bottom. Still, there were places that space could have been saved. The sizing, logo and disclaimer printed on each of the components takes more than a full page of space on each pattern. The button guide could have been incorporated into the shirt front pieces, and some of the spacing was a little spread out. The few pages these things could have saved really wouldn't make much of a difference in the end. 

The pattern went together beautifully. It's obvious that Heather paid attention to detail when she was designing this pattern. The shirt cuffs and hem bands are great features. The pants pockets go beyond decoration and are deep enough to be functional. The pants have a flattering cut and the notched collar is completely classic; yet the cut of the neckline is contemporary and flattering. These are the sorts of details that elevate me-made garments, and I appreciated that she did all the thinking for me in advance. 

For the most part, I did not follow the instructions. I did read through them. They appear to be complete and easy to understand. I thought the suggestion to sew vertical lines of stitching through the waistband at the position of the side seams was brilliant. It's so simple, yet so effective for keeping that elastic from rolling. The method described for attaching piping seems unnecessarily time consuming;I prefer to sew my piping all at once, sandwiched between he seam allowances, but it seemed to be explained clearly enough that a person attaching piping for the first time would be able to follow them successfully, which I think was the intention. Also, it's worth mentioning that I bought five yards of this fabric, per the pattern recommendations, and I very barely had enough yardage to cut the short sleeved version. I would definitely order additional fabric in the future. 

The only modifications I made to my pajamas were to shorten the pants by 3 1/2 inches and sew my shirt facings in place so they will stay put during laundering. I love my finished product, but the next time I make these, I'll go down a size or two. And, yes, I will definitely sew these pajamas again. I think a couple more winter pairs of Carolyn pjs are in order, and I'd love to follow Kelly's lead and sew both pants and shorts for future versions to have pjs that transition easily from one season to the next.