New Craft House fabric |

Last Summer (hence the title, lol) I made some more Carolyn Pyjamas for my holidays in Italy (which turned out to be during a heatwave, with the lowest temperature being like 30) and Thailand. I realised I had a bit of a gap as I had fallen out of love with my Grainline Lakeside pyjamas I made years ago.

I’ve made I think 4 pairs of Carolyns before (long sleeved cotton, brushed cotton, flannel, short-sleeved but long trousers cotton) but I had been a long time since I’d sewn the pattern so it was almost like starting from scratch! Looking at these, I could do with another full on flannel pair for the winter…

I made the size 8, as I have done with all the other pairs, though I’d not made the shorts before. Though they’re pretty much the same as the long trousers, but with shorter seams. lol! I can’t remember if it’s in the pattern (and I missed it every times before) or if I just picked this tip up after sewing a Helen’s Closet Gilbert shirt, but I top stitched around the facing, to keep them folded back as that has annoyed me about all the other pairs I made – they look like they’ve never been ironed in their life once you sleep in them once!

The blue fabric was from New Craft House, and is reversible. I decided to use it with the shinier side out, so the more cotton-y side was next to my skin as I worried it would make me a bit too sweaty to be the other way around. I did have to unpick a few seams, though, because I kept getting confused and sewing them with the wrong side on the outside.

The rainbow check was from Sew Me Sunshine and is really nice quality! Zero comments, it was just really nice to sew with and is really nice to wear in bed on a hot day!

Also I realised when I was editing these photos, and adding them to this post, that I clearly do the same poses all the time, lol! It wasn’t on purpose that I ended up with pretty much identical poses in both sets of pyjamas!

It’s funny how it feels like there are certain garments where I’m like ‘well I have the perfect pattern so that’s that’ and pyjamas are definitely in that category! I like the old fashioned, man-style pyjamas so why would I bother making a different one?! Though I guess it does make my blog posts a little more samey since I don’t make new patterns all the time (*cough* Archer shirt). Do you stick to tried and true patterns or are you all about the novelty?

Back in December (when Christmas was in the future), I was invited to a Christmas party for the band I’m in. I decided to make a new dress for the occasion – because why not!?

I was in the mood for something sparkly/shiny and found this amazing fabric from the New Craft House. I think I got the last metre, which was just enough to make this dress.

I used the Inari pattern from Named as the basis for this dress, but I wanted to add more fullness to the hem than the dress version is drafted with. I didn’t, however, write any notes about what I did. If memory serves, I placed all the pattern pieces on the fabric and extended the tee from under the arm to as wide as it would do for the width of the fabric.

Since this is a woven fabric, I used the facings included with the pattern but I think I stretched out the neckline of the dress a bit – it’s definitely wider than I would have preferred. Lesson for next time – stay stitch the neckline.

I do enjoy how slinky the fabric is and I hope this dress will be a little more wearable for more occasions than a lot of the other things I’ve made for specific events.