19/11/2017

Rollerskate Carolyn PJ's

Well, well, long time no blog!  Holy cats I've been busy over the past couple months.  Between August and Thanksgiving I was only home for 2 weekends... so not much time for sewing or blogging!  Camping, weddings, and family get-togethers all crammed in at the same time.  I've also been busy working on getting the Ottawa Garment Guild going, and we've now got a great little Executive Committee working together to get organized for meetings starting in the new year.  

I sewed up these PJ's (using the Closet Case Carolyn Pajamas pattern) in August just in time for Camp Roller Derby.  It's a summer camp for people who are part of the roller derby community, and I just neeeeeded to get these done in time.  Now, I haven't really been on my skates much over the past 6 months thanks to a knee injury and crazy busy weekends, but I'm getting back into it this winter, armed with some great physio exercises for my knee and (finally) some free time.

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I bought this fabric ages ago from Fabrications when it first hit the shelves.  I'm pretty sure I splurged on 5 metres of it... because I wasn't sure what I wanted to make... but I know I had to have some of this in my stash!  I also bought some HOT PINK quilting cotton from Fabricland for the piping.  I chose to just do a flat piping, and I'm pretty happy with the result!  it really makes those hot pink toe-stops pop :)



(oh gosh, looking at these photos in the garden from the summer is making me not excited for the snow on the ground this morning!)



I have made the Carolyn PJ shorts a couple times, once in a knit (cats!) and another time in constellation-print cotton.  This time I did make a couple changes.... I sized-up from last time, and added 2 inches to the length of the shorts.  I was finding that my derby-butt was too big for the old constellation-print ones, and that they were juuuust a bit too short for my liking, and the crotch kept riding up (ouch!).  I rarely do much pattern alteration, but I'm so glad I did with these shorts!  What a difference it made.  They're so much more comfortable than my old ones.



I also added piping to the short pockets.  Just for fun, even though the pattern doesn't call for it.  I like the pocket accent on the Hudson Pants, so I was going for that kind of look.  Also, I used hot pink thread (leftover from making pussyhats for the Women's March earlier this year) for the top-stitching. Eee!  SO much pink!




I hadn't made the top for the PJ set before, and it was definitely more challenging than the shorts. The trickiest part I found was attaching the collar and the lapel facings - especially with the piping!  It took a couple tries and my seam ripper was close at hand, but in the end - success!  This top is SO comfortable, and it's big enough that I don't have to unbutton it.  As for the buttons - I managed to find pink star buttons!  In roller derby, the jammer (point-scorer) wears a star on her helmet... I'm not a jammer (heck, I haven't even played in a real bout yet!) but I figured star buttons would be more fitting than just regular ol' round ones.










And there we have it!  Now that life has slowed down a bit, I'm going to try and get this blog updated a bit more frequently. I do post lots more on Instagram though, so it's best to follow me over there!

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