Posted on 9 Comments

Not so intimidating anymore

Lounge pants in progress

From the moment I saw the lounge pants in Amy Butler’s In Stitches, I was smitten.  This was two years ago, and I had barely a month of sewing under my belt.  Every delicious project in that book looked impossibly complicated to me, so after a month of drooling over the pants, the apron, and who knows what else, I gave up and put the book away on the shelf.

Since that time, I’ve taken on one little sewing challenge at a time, slowly building my skill set.  And wouldn’t you know it? I took that book down off the shelf recently, and actually understood most of the directions.  Not only that, but I found I didn’t need to read the directions as much as skim them.  Hard to believe I could have learned so much in two years without even realizing it.

New lounge pants

These lounge pants are made from an extremely lightweight thrifted bedsheet, and will fill a void in my nightwear collection – I love all of my handmade pajama pants, but anything constructed from a quilting cotton is way too warm for a Summer night.  The weightlessness and flowiness of these should make them perfect for sweaty weather.

New lounge pants

I veered from the instructions in a few places.  Most notably, I replaced the drawstring with elastic. I dislike drawstrings.  They add extra bulk in the tummy area, and I have enough unwanted extra bulk in the tummy area as it is, thankyouverymuch.  I also didn’t put any ribbon trim at the ankles, because I thought it might interfere with the flowy weightless factor, and make them too stiff.  I may still change my mind on that one, though.

I’m considering using the half of the sheet that I have left to make a Built by Wendy Simplicity 3835 shirt that I can use as a pajama top.  I don’t often wear pajama sets anymore, but something tells me it might just work for me in this case.  Either that, or maybe I can adapt a pillowcase tank tutorial.  I’ll keep you posted, if I do.

By the way, thank you all for the suggestions as to where to get cake flour yesterday.  I have always figured I could get pretty much anything I wanted in the stores around here, being so close to a major metropolitan area, but would you believe neither my regular supermarket nor the local Walmart carries cake flour?  Crazy.  I may try one more place around here, but if that fails, I’ll just go online or make my own.  Preferably before the blueberries go bad.

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Posted on 9 Comments

9 thoughts on “Not so intimidating anymore

  1. i was just thinking i need to make me a pair. i might try though the capri pant length. i have just the sheet.

    1. I don’t normally care for long pants in the summer, but these just begged to be made to skim the floor. More dramatic that way 😉

  2. Lisa, I LOVE the pants! I have been visiting your website for quite a while and LOVE all of your projects. What an inspiration you are! I actually made a skirt from a sheet after reading about it on here last year…..it turned out soooo cute…..now I think I need to make these pants…I have a “thing” for comfy old sheets also!

    1. Aw, so sweet of you to say! I’m a huge fan of thrift store sheets myself – where else can you find such large pieces of fabric for so little money?

  3. […] theme, I turned to Nancy of Belle Epoque and her Tie Tank Top Tute to make a top to match my new pajama bottoms.  Again, I found it quite simple to make, now that I have some basic sewing […]

  4. ah, the amy butler pajama pants. My favorite. I have a second pair almost done, I don’t know why I don’t just hem the beasts.

  5. […] looking at another (my third) pair of Amy Butler In Stitches lounge pants.  My other two pairs are very springy and summery, and I was feeling more like wearing oranges and greens than […]

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