Everybody needs new PJs, right?

I usually make my husband a pair of tailored PJs at Christmas, but for some reason I was sleeping in disintegrating non-me-made flannelette PJs (winter) or t-shirts and shorts (summer). I have a couple of trips coming up this summer and needed to up my game. 

I decided to make the Carolyn Pajamas pattern from Closet Core. Enter this Egyptian themed and weirdly badly printed fabric, pure cotton, that I bought years ago at the Fabric Flea Market. I had always earmarked it for PJs because ... well, that print! It's so strange!

Now behold, my new shortie PJ set.

When I make tailored PJs, I do it right with contrast piping (striped shirting from stash) and matching prints, even where the print is pretty ridiculous. 

The shirt pocket (totally redundant and also almost completely impossible to find) is at left. This set also has piping up the front edges, around the collar, and on the cuffs of both the sleeves and the shorts. 

I made the Carolyns once before but didn't use the pants pattern. This time I printed off the shorts pattern. It's interesting that there is a separate set of pages for the shorts, they are not just a "cut here" line on the long pants. 

Looking at the dimensions of the pattern, I decided to size up. Who needs snug and low-rise PJ pants? Not I!

My hips put me in a size 10 so I cut a 12 for width and went up to the size 20 line at the waist. 

It is kind of silly to have pockets in PJ pants, but these do. 

I can't see them in this photo. Take it on faith.

One thing that bugged me about my previous Carolyns (pictured at left) is that the collar and facings don't behave unless you iron your PJs. Who irons PJs? Not me!

They were made from light weight flannelette with the contrast piping and facings in quilting cotton. I interfaced everything (as per pattern) with an extra layer of the cotton. 

For this pair, because this cotton fabric is quite firm, I decided not to interface anything. The piping ensures the edges won't collapse. And I stitched the facings to the fronts, through all layers, so they will never flip up or fold back. 

As in my other pair, I added a deep back neck facing to encase the neckline seam. 

I wasted a bit of time treating this print seriously and trying to figure out which Egyptian personages are featured. No luck. Maybe one of them is the god of sleep...