DIY Pyjama Shorts

Well, hello everyone! It’s been a while… But the year is definitely up and running, and routines have been established, so all is good! If you follow me on Facebook and Instagram you may have seen a few snippets of what we’ve been up to since I was last here (links at right).

You may remember my last post where I shared with you all the Pokémon themed bedding I made from two sheets. I kept the leftover bits of fabric from this project and wondered what to do with them. Then it came to me!

We’ve been having pretty extreme summer temperatures here in Sydney, Australia, and some nights have stayed uncomfortably warm too. Keeping cool has been very important. (Thankfully, it is much cooler now.) So I decided to use those leftover sheet pieces to make our son some pyjama shorts.

I don’t remember ever making shorts before, but these are only going to be worn at home, so it doesn’t really matter if they aren’t perfect!

I found a pair of his current pyjama shorts, and used them to make a pattern out of newspaper. I made sure to allow for seams.

Of course, when I laid my pattern out on the fabric, it was a little too big!

But since I was able to use the edge that was already hemmed, I thought it would be ok. So I went ahead and cut it out. I planned on making up a practice pair in yellow, checking they fitted and making any adjustments to the pattern, then making the ‘real’ pair in blue.

So, I had two pieces of fabric cut out. I laid them on top of each other, right sides together…

…and sewed the curved edges on both sides. Make sure not to sew the short edges. They will be joined later, after re-folding the shorts. In the photo above you can see the pre-hemmed edge along the bottom. This saved me a lot of work!

Here’s a closer look at the curved bit sewn up

Next step was to make a hem across the top, wide enough to insert some elastic.  You can buy wide, no-roll elastic which is perfect for this. Since my fabric was a bit shorter than I’d wanted and I made my hem as narrow as I could, I just used 12mm elastic.

At this stage, they look like a big tube.

Refold the shorts so the side seams are now down the middle.

Then it’s just a matter of sewing together the short bits between the legs, and threading  elastic through the top.

It turns out the yellow ‘practice’ shorts were pretty amazing, so we now have 2 new pairs of pyjama shorts to choose from!

I’m certainly not going to take up making these for a living! But, even if you haven’t made pants before, there’s no harm in giving them a go. They were quite quick to make – writing this blog post took longer than sewing these up!

Perhaps I’ll try some long, winter pyjama pants next…or not 😉

Linking up with:

21 Rosemary Lane – Share Your Style, Too Much Time on My Hands – The Handmade Hangout, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs Olson – Share Your Cup, Organised31 – This is How We Roll, Sincerely, Paula – No Rules Weekend Blog Party, The Life of Jennifer Dawn – A Little Bird Told Me, The Pin Junkie, Life With Lorelei – Home Matters, Shoestring Elegance – What to do Weekends, Tatertots and Jello – Friday Features, Raising Fairies and Knights – Blogger Spotlight, Simply Sweet Home – Friday Favourites, Oh My Heartsie Girl – Friday Features, Little Miss Celebration – Best of the Weekend, Strawberry Butterscotch – Saturday Shuffle, Love of Home – Sundays at Home, Nifty Thrifty Things, That Recipe – Happiness is Homemade, Plucky’s Second Thought – Cooking and Crafting With J&J, Claire Justine – Creative Mondays, Create With Joy – Inspire Me Monday, I Should Be Mopping the Floor – Inspiration Monday, The DIY Mommy – The Creative Corner, My Pinterventures – Merry Monday, Lou Lou Girls, Our Home Away From Home – Tuesdays at Our Home, The Dedicated House – Make it Pretty Monday, Cedar Hill Farmhouse – The Scoop, Pocketful of Posies – Dream. Create. Inspire, The DIY Dreamer – From Dream to Reality, Oh My Heartsie Girl – Wonderful Wednesday, Savvy Southern Style – Wow us Wednesday, Mother2Mother – Sunday’s Best, Yesterday on Tuesday – Project Inspired, Being a Wordsmith – Turn it up Tuesday,