Dec 3, 20214 min read

Winter Festivities: Pajama Party!

Winter is a time for family. And my family tends to be fairly casual. So when we get together, it often involves comfy clothes, good food, and lots of fun.

When I was little, my parents started a tradition where we opened one present on Christmas Eve. And guess what? It was always a new pair of pajamas! When my girls were little, we continued the same tradition with them. For blogging purposes, they received their 2021 pajamas a little early… but that just gives me an excuse to make them both another set!

When I hatched this scheme, I had to keep one thing in mind. My teenagers do not do holiday-themed clothing far removed from holidays. Once Christmas is over, Christmas-themed PJs are a no-go. So I decided to find fabric that was holiday, but not too Christmas-y. Amelia Lane Designs has a great selection of navy and red fabrics. This color palate created a great holiday adjacent feel without screaming CHRISTMAS!

(Apparently group pictures are hard. This is the best picture we got of us together and I'm not sure what we are looking at. So feel the pajama love and forgive our odd facial expressions.)

As time has gone on, I have started including my husband and myself in the holiday PJs tradition. For as long as I can remember, I wanted a pair of plaid button-up pajamas, complete with collar and piping details. I saw the Crosby liverpool and decided this was the year. (And it didn’t hurt that it fit the color scheme perfectly.) All the classic style pajama patterns I found were designed for woven fabric. Thank goodness liverpool is stable enough to substitute for wovens without many alterations. I ended up using Jalie’s classic pyjama pattern for my pair. I made a few modifications including shortening the sleeves, slightly changing snap position, and adding patch pockets to the pants. The piping feature was the deciding factor in my pattern choice, but then I debated skipping the piping when I was running out of time (the plaid matching took for-ev-er). But I talked myself into it and I’m so glad I did.

With knit fabrics, traditional prepackaged piping can be used, but it’s a bit of a pain getting the woven fabric of the piping to play nicely with the stretch of the knit. Instead, I added flat piping made from navy Dri-Tex moss. You can learn more about this technique in the blog post here.

When it was time to take pictures, my girls saw my pajamas and both asked why they didn’t get “fancy pajamas.” I guess I know which pattern I’ll be using to make their “real" Christmas Eve PJs.

Despite their protests, I did ask the girls what kind of pajamas they wanted. My youngest always asks for the Gabriela from DIBY Club. She loves onesie PJs. This pattern is intended to be fairly fitted so we do size up as she prefers a loose fit for sleeping. The kangaroo pocket is a favorite for holding “The Phone” and warming hands. Fabric is the Luna brushed pointelle (and I really must love it, because I accidentally bought it twice while shopping for pajama fabric). It’s a pointelle with the same lovely texture, but it’s much thicker and loftier than the standard pointelle. It would make perfect winter layers… and nice warm pajamas. Stars always remind me of Christmas and winter at the same time so it's definitely on theme. The Gabriela is a much quicker sew than it looks and the pointelle was a dream to work with.

My oldest asked for her new favorite comfy combo, the Sinclair Nova raglan top and Sunset lounge pants. Again, we went with pointelle, this time the white dots pointelle. This fabric is covered in teeny weeny stars that worked beautifully for her top. I used the same flat piping technique in the raglan sleeve seams for a little extra bit of color. Not sure if I would use waffle knit again as it came out bumpy, but it was a fun experiment and, of course, matches the bottoms perfectly. I wanted red for the bottoms and so chose the red waffle knit. Waffle is probably not the ideal bottoms material with its lack of recovery, but it seems incredibly comfy for sleeping and is so very soft. On that same note, for everyday wear, I wouldn't recommend waffle for bands or cuffs. However, pajamas to me are more about comfort and, if the neckband stretches during wear, it's no big deal because it's soft! Because the Sunset pants include elastic in the waistband seam, I was able to use pointelle for the waistband. It makes my coordinating heart happy to be able to mix and match fabrics in pajamas.

I didn’t give my husband much of a choice, but I know what he likes. I personally believe pointelle can be used for everything so what did we use for his top? Red stripes pointelle of course! The pattern is the Toby K Berlin tee, my husband’s favorite basic tee. We did change it up a little with a V-neck version. Pointelle is a great fabric for basic tees. The texture gives everything a whole new dimension while still being comfy. For the bottoms, we went with the navy Dri-tex moss athletic. This fabric is a great bottom weight, nice and stretchy but still structured. We copied a pair of his favorite joggers to make a pattern. That way it was guaranteed he would love them. These joggers will be great for even wearing outside the house, especially because they include our favorite pants feature, pockets!