If 2020 hasn’t been the year to sew the perfect pajamas, I don’t know when will be. As the temperatures drop, I started to get a real hankering for some myself. I started seeing all these loungewear brands come out with some matching sets and I knew I needed to make some long johns for myself.
Longjohns are typically made as a two-piece set from waffle cotton fabric. This allows them to be both warm but breathable. To me, that’s the downside of flannels. It’s just never cold enough here in the South to justify flannel. I always get too hot in them. But, this waffle knit has been great!
I got both the waffle knit and the band fabric from Fabric.com. I have linked them both in the description box if you want to shop for yourself.
The waffle knit is really soft, lightweight, and loosely woven…which is great! Now, when shopping for the knit for the bands, I wasn’t paying a ton of attention to what is was made from and focused mostly on getting a matching color so what I ended up finding isn’t ideal for certain parts of the pajamas, namely the pants waistband. The solid knit works great for the whole top, for what it’s worth.
So, the waistband of this pattern has no elastic or interfacing, which I liked initially. I mean I wanted to sleep in them and I wanted to be comfortable. However, the solid knit really stretches out quite a bit, so these tend to slide down as I wear them. Not a terrible problem when I’m sleeping but certainly if I want to lounge in them, I need to keep pulling them up.
That said, though, fixing this issue is super simple, which I can even do now even though they are completely sewn. One option is to add a lightweight elastic. I could sew drawstrings on the ends of the elastic to make it adjustable for sleeping or lounging.
Anther option would be to cut off this waistband and resew it using a more stable knit. I’m going to try out the first option first and see how that goes. The second option would really be a last resort.
The patterns I used are the Seamwork Elli top and the Rad Patterns Long John Jammers.
The Elli top is really a simple sew even factoring in the henley half placket. If plackets aren’t your thing, you could easily forgo those steps and just sew a closed neckband. I absolutely love how low the neckline is on this top. It’s not constricting at all! I didn’t make any adjustments to this pattern.
The Long John jammers required a few length adjustments in the rise and inseam. Those were easy enough. I might add some length back to the rise for my next pair though. I did also add some length to the crotch depth which is why you see some extra fabric there. I don’t mind it, obviously since I didn’t remove it. It gives me more range of motion in that area since the waffle fabric isn’t super super stretchy. Having that extra fabric in the crotch might not look the best, but it allows me to relax on the sofa in any position I want without feeling like the fabric is pulling.
Not to mention, I’m clearly not wearing any of this out of the house so who really cares. The only people in the world that will see this are the few thousand of you that watch this video. LOL. And, for some reason, that’s less intimidating than any of my neighbors seeing me in it. I guess I just trust this space to be safe so thank ya’ll for that.
Anyway, that’s the tea on my new long johns. I really love them and have worn them so many times in the few weeks I’ve had them. I highly recommend getting in on this trend and making some for yourself.
But, that’s going to do it for me today! Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you all very soon. Bye.
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