Cotton Lawn Carolyn Pajamas & Carolyn Friedlander Aubepine Dress

Both of the makes in this post are LONG overdue to be finished. One is for my mum, and one is for me! The first is a pair of Closet Case Patterns Carolyn pajamas. She’s really into these head-to-toe pajamas from a company called Bedhead, and when we were in NYC a few years ago she went to a store that carries their pajamas and got a couple pairs. But they’re not cheap at all. $140USD for the regular cotton ones, and they also do Liberty for ~$280USD. So this is one of those situations where making your own is definitely cheaper – not that I don’t support Bedhead, because they cut and sew everything locally and the price is reflective of that and totally worth it. But even though the Carolyn pajamas use 5.25m of fabric for the long sleeve, pant version, it’s usually still cheaper unless you have a taste for Liberty, in which case it’s probably more similar in price.

I made her a pair for her birthday a couple years ago out of quilting cotton, and she loved them! About 10 months ago, she asked me if I would make her another pair if she bought the fabric, and I of course said yes. She got this Robert Kaufman cotton lawn from Atlantic Fabrics (it’s one of their London Calling lawns), which is soft and lightweight but not nearly as expensive as Liberty. I felt that the lighter fabric might not be able to support corded piping for the details, or that it might make the cuffs and collars unnecessarily stiff, so I went with flat piping made from bias tape.

I started with the pants, and finished them aside from stitching the elastic in the waistband together around two months after starting the project. I was not feeling super motivated by the project, which often happens to me with selfless sewing, and had to force myself to keep working on them. I wanted to wait until she tried them on to sew the elastic, and was feeling really proud of my finishing on them. French seamed everywhere, top-stitching on point, very precise all aroudn. I got her to try them on and it was immediately apparent that despite intending to sew the cuffed version of the pattern, I had clearly cut along the line for the non-cuffed pants and then sewn the cuffs on, and they were 2-3″ too long. Which really was the cherry on top of not feeling interested in sewing them in the first place. So they sat for 3-4 months, during which time I got bogged down in bridesmaids stuff and when I wasn’t sewing bridesmaids dresses, I wanted to sew nice things for me as a break. So the cuffs didn’t get taken off for ages.

When they finally got taken off and new ones put back on, I felt a rush of accomplishment and good juju at having completed half of the long overdue pajamas that I felt bad about not working on. So I rode on that high for probably another two months. A couple weeks ago, I started working on the top and got to the point of sewing the collar on (even had it pinned in place and everything along the neckline) and then convinced myself to take a break until the next day because it was late and I didn’t have it in me to deal with picking out tucks if I accidentally sewed any while easing the fabrics together. The “next day” turned out to be two weeks later, aka Friday afternoon, when in a fit of angst caused by two nearly sleepless nights back to back, I had a pressing need to cross SOMETHING off the list of things hanging over my head. So I started sewing the top again and resolved that I would finish them that night no matter what. I ended up having a sewing date with a friend, and that helped me stay on track because I didn’t bring any projects to her apartment besides this one. No possible distractions! And I FINISHED. She got back from a trip to Arizona on Friday night, and I was able to give them to her that very night and feel very relieved that they’re done!

I had the pattern pieces sitting around on my sewing desk in case I needed to consult them, and I finally put them away this morning! Hallelujah! I think the pajamas turned out great. These photos were taken yesterday, after a night of her sleeping in them (she put them on straight away) and they’re not wrinkly at all! I think the flat piping was a good choice, and think she looks very fashionable! My only issue was that I got a weird curvy tuck at the bottom front corners because of the piping. It’d been a while since I made the pattern, and last time I used traditional corded piping, and have no remembrance of this being an issue or having to do something strange to avoid it. I left it, because I couldn’t think of a way to alleviate the issue. Plus, they’re pajamas! They will not be going out into the world. (FYI, I made a size 10 on top and then graded from the waist to the hips to size 14. The bottoms are a straight size 14.)

The other thing I crossed off my to-do list this weekend was altering this Deer & Doe Aubépine dress. It was the very first thing I made when I moved to Toronto in fall of 2014. I bought a sewing machine on Kijiji for $60 (originally $75, but then when I tested it, it wouldn’t backstitch so she knocked down the price), and ended up at the workroom for the very first time. I only gotten REALLY into garment sewing that summer previously, and didn’t know much about anything. I’d sewn things before, but not really a lot of clothes for myself, just costumes. I didn’t know about different drapes of fabrics, or amounts of ease, or making a muslin, or fitting adjustments, or even the difference between quilting cotton and cotton lawn. I fell in love immediately with this Carolyn Friedlander quilting cotton. It’s from her collection Carkai, which was heavily inspired by bones and I loved that! This particular print is called The Jumble, in the black and gold colourway. I couldn’t see any available online anymore, unfortunately. I bought it in 2014, so that kind of makes sense. Some of the other colourways do seem to be on Etsy, so if you’re interested you could check things out there.

This dress pattern calls for a full lining, and I had no idea what to use for lining fabric with the quilting cotton. Luckily, Karyn at the workroom gave me a lot of guidance (I didn’t realize at the time that she owned the place!) and I ended up going with this Robert Kaufman lawn to help things from being too heavy. I made the version of the pattern with the three-quarter length elastic cuffed sleeves, and used a ribbon as the drawstring as the pattern called for. Both of these things were why I NEVER wore it. I loved the idea of it, but I never found myself reaching for the dress in my closet. It’s also a size 40, when I later found out that 38 in Deer & Doe fits me much better. So the slightly-too-big size, plus the slippery ribbon that never stayed tied and didn’t distribute the gathers nicely, and then the long constricting sleeves, it was just all too much.

I couldn’t fix the sizing thing at this point, but when I went through my closet a few months ago to sort through what I was actually wearing, I made a category of clothes that I felt I COULD wear but would need to change in some way first. This was one of the items in that category. So I cut off the sleeves to the short length and re-hemmed them, and then made a new fabric drawstring out of a length of black cotton (actually four 1″ strips sewed together end to end to be economical with fabric). I folded it in half and then folded those edges into the center before top-stitching the edge. When I made this pattern for my mum in August, I remembered the issue with the slippery ribbon and made a self-string for that one from the get-go, so I knew it would be a good fix for this one. And now it’s great! I can see myself wearing it a lot this fall – since it’s made from quilting cotton and fully lined, it’s a bit warmer than your average dress. And that fabric! I’m so happy I can now get good use out of the garment, because I just love the print so much.

Has anyone else been infected with the finishing spirit lately? I was clearly on a spree, because I also did the fitting alterations on my wearable muslin of the Closet Case Amy jumpsuit even though normally it would’ve sat there for a week or two out of irritation at having to change things on a finished garment. NOT TODAY. I’m hoping to make an Amy out of my “real” fabric maybe sometime this week, hopefully you’ll see the two on the blog next weekend if I manage it!