McCall’s 6681
Over Christmas, I was wanting to do a wee bit of sewing for my children, but by wee I do mean wee since I had about as much free time as I ever do lately, which is on the order of a few hours ever other week. For Tyo, stretchy cozy PJ pants seemed to fit the bill, but they needed to be as simple as possible. Even the Sewaholic Tofino pattern, which has to be one of the cutest PJ-pants patterns out there, and is sitting patiently in my stash, seemed too complicated.
So, after a bit of stash rummaging, I settled on McCall’s 6681, a Stitch ‘n Save pattern that I can’t quite decide if it’s cute, or just dated and butt-ugly. Anyway, the bottoms were a completely basic PJ trouser, which is what I was looking for. As it turned out they’re a teeny bit tapered, which I thought might suit the kids these days.
Batpants!
Despite the deliciously-soft panda fabric featured throughout this post, the first Christmas pair was made with Batman fleece. This was a rare score, indeed, since Fabricland has had mostly bugger all for licensed anything the last couple of years, so I had to snaffle it up when I saw it, since this year Tyo is All Batman All The Time. I’m not terribly into taking on pop-culture as totem or mascot, myself, but, well, I suppose there are worse mascots she could adopt than Batman. And this was a LOT easier than the Pikachu onesie.
Now, while one of the major downsides of having a teenage daughter is her ability to steal your clothes, in making these as a present, it became a bit of a boon—I made them to fit me, just a little bit shorter. It worked fairly well, though I should’ve made the waist a bit more snug—not sure if that’s to be blamed on my comparatively-larger waist (do you see the hips on that kid?), or the way the elastic stretches out a bit in sewing. Anyway, they aren’t going to fall off. And she was very, very happy with them.
So, when I finally dug out this panda fleece (purchased a year ago last fall, originally for Tyo before she came down with a bade case of Pikachuitis) to make a pair of comfy pants for Fyon’s birthday (who is eight now, by the way, how the hell did that happen?), I figured I should make Tyo a pair too, for old time’s sake, even if pandas are so year-before-last. Since I had the pattern all ready to go ‘n everything.
The pandas will get you if you don’t watch out!
So I did.
Tyo-fitting pattern changes
Being the second make, I tweaked the pattern a bit, finalizing the changes I’d made to the rise the first time. I make these changes kinda preemptively to a lot of pants patterns, especially when I know they were designed for a higher rise in the front than I like. (I’ve become comfortable with a very uneven rise, nice and high for lots of coverage in the back, dipping low in the front to sit under the belly. Tyo seems to like it too, but it makes it really hard to wear most storebought pants and leggings. For this pair, I added a bit of length (depth? I always forget which it is) to the back crotch, as well, just for good measure.
The front. I forgot to get her to hike her shirt so you could actually see the rise.
Now, I’m certainly not going to be a fit-Nazi about some baggy PJ pants, but I am pretty pleased with how they turned out, anyway. No smiles and straining, but not so huge she’s swimming in them. How much can be credited to my alterations and how much to the fact that these are loose PJ pants, I don’t really know (I suspect mostly the latter, though.) And no, I didn’t even try to pattern-match panda-faces across her butt.
The back. Also, why can’t I have hips like that? /momsulk
The back hangs almost straight, and the rise is nice and high.
The side. You can kinda see the angle of the waistband under her shirt.
The best thing about PJ pants like these is how damn fast they are to put together. These didn’t take more than an hour all told (it helped that the pattern was ready to go, mind you), and I also managed to churn out a couple of fuzzy pants for Fyon and the Waif. And I think I have just enough panda fabric left to make some 3/4-length comfies for Syo.
Small fuzzy pants
There’s only one problem: Osiris is now wondering where his panda pants are.
Tanit-Isis Sews 
ADORABLE. I really like the soulless panda faces!
Interesting to see your alterations, thanks for laying them out so cleanly for us to see – especially your rise mods. I’ve been thinking about pants a lot of late, and I think the biggest alteration I need to do is adding length/depth to the crotch curve. Maybe. I think.
I can’t believe she’ll let you take all of these photos for the blog! My kid will have nothing to do with it anymore. She’ll take my homemade sweat pants, but she won’t allow me to photograph them. Hmmm. Lovely job on these, btw. And it’s amazing that your little girl is a teenager now. 🙂 Where does time go?
They look so cozy! I should make some fleece pants for myself.
I think the pattern is cute, it’s the envelope art that is dated. Although it IS a little weird to have short sleeves on a hooded garment … I also have problems understanding sleeveless turtlenecked sweaters. Where I live, we don’t have to cover our heads when we sleep, but sometimes a long-sleeved top is good to wear.
I know that, in the far North, even with central heating, there are times when the concept of wearing a night-cap is an excellent idea. Thus the hood on the pajama top, one supposes. The top would make a good swimsuit cover-up, come summertime.