celebrate the boy… with new pajamas!

i forgot to take a before picture, but imagine a very large, red mock-turtleneck, long-sleeved shirt with a little fading, a few small paint splotches and a teeny tiny hole.  i took that shirt (which, you can imagine, i had no regrets cutting up) and tried out the kimono pattern from the habitual blog with a few adjustments to make it more boy-ish and easier to wear.

first, i made it out of knit instead of woven.  then, i widened the front panel pieces so that they would be the same width as the back panel piece.  then, when i sewed the shirt together, i sewed the sides of the front panels into the side seams of the shirt.  this eliminates the need for the tie, but still maintains the kimono collar which looks great and goes over a baby’s head nicely.  i did end up sewing the overlapping part down because otherwise it sort of gapped open.  that was a little awkward, but still do-able.  i made the 12-18 month size and barely had enough fabric in the body of the original t-shirt to get all the pieces cut out.  this shirt is also very long on my boy–more of a tunic than a shirt–so i thought i’d try getting matching pajama pants out of the sleeves (which i hadn’t cut into yet).  i made a pattern using an existing pair of his pajamas (i didn’t have to cut them apart and i used the plastic bags that line cereal boxes as the pattern material–if you want a tutorial, let me know.  if there’s enough interest, i’ll see what i can do), cut them out (using the existing shirt sleeve cuffs as the pant leg cuffs) and got some cute little skinny pajama pants.

yes folks, i got a complete pajama set out of one big ol’ t-shirt!  i didn’t make these super fancy (no paint, no tag in the back of the shirt, hardly any serging to finish off the seams) because they were really just to test the pattern to see if it would work, but i actually kind of like the way they look on the boy and i’m pretty sure i’ll make another set or two.  (the long top might actually stay down so his belly doesn’t get cold in the middle of the night!)