Garment a Month Project: May

School camp is the first week of June and her birthday sleep-over is the last week. That's a lot of public pj's time! Seeing as how her last growth spurt turned all her pj tops into belly shirts and the pants into shorts, it's time for new ones. I am making the daughter 7 pairs of pajamas. The garment of the month goal for May is complete two of them (one for each night of camp).

I plunked her down in front of Hawthorne Threads and told her to pick whatever caught her eye. Her final "favorites" list totaled 44! We whittled away the choices until 7 patterns remained. The fabric was then ordered, delivered and subsequently pre-washed. Ready to go!

Next came the pattern. I wanted to try my hand at pattern alteration so chose to modify one I found in Burda Style Magazine, March 2010 edition (pattern #137: girl's jacket). I am hoping something like this will be a good learning experience.

I modified the coat by:

• rounding the collar edge to make it more of a Peter Pan shape. I used the pocket as a guide so the curves matched.
• shortening the sleeves
• lengthening the hem to make it fit mid-hip rather than at the waist
• moving the pocket to the breast and decreasing the number of pockets from 2 to 1

After I carefully traced the pattern, I added 5/8" seam allowance. I want to self-seal the seams and this is a great allowance to do that. For the pants, I am using a pattern I already had for a pair of very easy, elasticated waist pants. The only modification is to crop them below the knee instead of at the ankle.

Today I am cutting the pattern out of muslin to do a test run and check the fit. See? I finally learned my lesson!