I've had this pattern in my stash for a while now (it came from Mom's Patterns). The envelope is obviously pretty ratty but the pattern itself was still factory folded until I opened it out! I had a slight moment of clumsiness (which is unfortunately common for me) during the sewing and managed to rip the instruction sheet quite badly, I hate it when I do things like that...
I used a cotton print in my son's favourite, dinosaurs, and I was glad it was cotton rather than polycotton after the number of times I ironed it! These pajamas call for felled seams and a lot of fiddling about with an iron, I was definitely glad to be in 2011 rather than using 1945 equipment.
I didn't follow the pants pattern as written. My son doesn't need a working fly just yet so I did a mock fly and also did an elasticated waist rather than a drawstring as experience has shown me that drawstrings and my son are not a good combination.
I love the front opening of the shirt. I've never made a pajama top like this before, normally when using flannel or cotton I do a button up shirt (this pattern does have long and short sleeve button front versions). The neckline went together well once I'd studied the instructions and then had a play with it to visualise exactly what I needed to do.
These are the felled seams on the shirt. I figured if I was going to do them I was going to use a thread colour that made them stand out! The sleeve cap is actually gathered which made for some fun ironing to get it all laying flat but I managed it in the end.
My son and I both love these pajamas and he said they were very comfortable to sleep in. The only issue with them was that either 8 year olds in the 40's were larger than today or after sewing all those seams twice they wanted the pajamas to last a good long time as they are HUGE on my son. We're talking roll up the waist a few inches and the sleeves coming over his hands! At least he'll get some good wear from them though and he's incredibly happy with them so it was worth the work!
Anna
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