It's curtains!

These colourful PJs are a much nicer product, IMHO, than the extremely badly sewn curtain panels the crazy print used to be. The cotton fabric is courtesy of my husband, the expert thrifter. He texted me a photo and I responded "buy immediately!"

The striped fabric was also originally intended for home dec, but it was unused yardage, also sourced at a thrift store. I loved the combination, which I think works because of the black and white stripes bounding the squares in the print. 

If not, it works because ... they're pajamas! Mostly I'll be wearing them in the dark and under the covers. 

This is the relatively new release Closet Core Fran pattern. I've really liked many of their stand alone patterns and am amassing quite a collection. 

Which reminds me - I still intend to make more Pietra pants. Must shop the stash... 

Anyway, back to Fran. 

This is designed as a pajama pattern, but it would make a perfectly lovely shirt and pants combo for day wear. I think it's very versatile, style-wise. 

The pieces are quite boxy by comparison with the other pajamas from Closet Core, the Carolyn pattern. Carolyn has a shapely top with curved collar, lapels and shirt tail. The pants are low rise, as designed (not as made by me, however) and have front pockets. Fran has a convertible collar, a back yoke and generous box pleat in the shirt, and wide, elastic-waisted, straight legged pants with pockets in the side seams (as designed). It has deep cuffs and hems, and a faced slit at the side seams. As you will know from this blog, I didn't love the Carolyn's collar shape and I drafted a simpler convertible collar for it. The Fran is more to my liking straight out of the envelope. 

Fran comes in "alpha" sizing (XXS, XS, S, M, L etc, up to 4X) rather than numbered sizes. Comparing the size charts, XXS combines sizes 0 and 2, XS combines 4 and 6, S combines 8 and 10 (mostly), etc. I made the top in XS, based on my bust measurement. There's a very generous 21.5 cm (8.5") amount of ease built into the sizing. XXS would have been totally fine.

These pants have a high elastic waist that I think looks really nice due to the topstitching above and below the elastic.

I initially cut the M pants because I'm at the upper end of the hip range for size S, but in construction I decided that they would be WAY too big, so I cut them down. This sacrificed the side seam pockets, but it's not a big hardship because who uses pockets in pajamas anyway. There is a patch pocket in the rear of the pants and another in the shirt if I ever (heaven forfend!) turn into the kind of person who always needs to have a kleenex ready to hand. 

In the result, I am sure I could have cut XS pants and been perfectly happy. In fact, I would cut XXS top and XS bottoms if using this pattern for anything other than PJs. It is a distinct possibility that I'll do just that.