I have been wanting to sew something relaxed and comfy for a while. Something I could wear during the day that felt like pjs, but not my actual pjs. Something that I could put on in the mornings and pretend I was well rested and get my day off to a good start. So I started to formulate some ideas in my head and then went searching my friend, Pinterest. You all know I love to find pictures of what I’m thinking, and save them in my idea board to come back to later, if I forget what I had in mind. Fortunately for me, lounge sets are all the rage and it was a quick search to find what I envisioned.
Our current weather is still hovering around 100 during the day, but 60-70 in the mornings, and my body has been acting up so my temps are uncontrollable. Naturally that meant I needed two options 😂 a shorts set and a pants set. Then the fabric searching began. I fell in love with three tie dye prints from Fabmere Fabrics. I know!! Three tie dyes?? This from the girl that hasn’t really liked tie dye?? But these colors and the print pattern is not the normal swirl and I love them! With some difficulty I was able to slim it down to two, another reason for two lounge sets.
Since my daughter and I just started a little business together, I really wanted to save some money and use patterns I already owned. I went with the Women’s Lucy from Made for Mermaids and the Rebekah from Sonia Estep Designs for the short set.
I used this rib and it feels so luxurious and I can’t get over how pretty these colors are! It has the absolute perfect drape for the bishop sleeves. I made a few mods to the patterns to get the look I wanted, but they were relatively simple. For the shorts, I sized down one, since the pattern was designed for woven and I used a knit. Then for the curved hem, I used a narrow three thread stitch on my serger, and gently pulled the fabric while serging, to give it a slight lettuce hem.
On the Rebekah, I went with the boatneck, curved hem shirt length, sized up one for more slouch. The pattern already has bishop sleeves, but since I wanted it elastic instead of cuffed, I needed to make a modification to the sleeve. I wanted to keep the width at the wrist as the pattern was drafted, so I cut the sleeve in half and added 5.25″. The 5.25 is 1″ for my normal sleeve addition, 3″ for the cuff we are not using, and 1.25″ for the elastic casing. I used 1″ elastic and to pick my length, I measured my wrist and added 3″. I overlapped the elastic ends 1/2″ which made my finished wrist elastic 8″. I wanted it loose enough to pull up, but not loose enough to slip over my hands.
For the pants set, I used this brushed French Terry. It is really soft and cozy and will be perfect when I’m feeling chilled. For the pants I used the Greenstyle Creations Brassie Joggers. The mods I made for it were to omit the waist elastic and pockets, and change the ankle cuff to elastic. To omit the pockets, I just lined up the pocket piece with the front pants piece, and taped it together to make the front a full piece.
Then for the cuff to elastic change, I used the 32″ inseam length vs the cuff length, and rolled them up 1.25″ to make my elastic casing. I used 1″ elastic and for the length I did 12″. My ankle measures 8.5″ and I wanted to be able to pull them up to my calf, which is a bit larger so I added 3.5″ extra and did a 1/2″ overlap to secure.
The top for my pants set took me a little longer since I messed up and then my machine ended up eating it, so I had to fudge it a little. I really wanted a hooded V neck, but almost every v neck I came across had a band and it wasn’t the look I was going for, so I chose to use the Hannah from Sonia Estep Designs, sized up one. It has a hood option and a quarter zip, so I decided to use that as my base, and just omit the zipper.
The hood is lined, but I really wanted the brushed texture of the French Terry to be exposed so I omitted the hood lining as well. Which actually helped with the v neck and skipped zipper since I planned to serge up one side, around the hood, and back down to the other side. Then turn the serged edge under and topstitch. When I serged up and around, I cut off the triangle point, where the top of the zipper would have been, and made it more of a curved edge from the neckline to the hood.
This is where things got messy though 😂. The pattern has you cut down from the neckline and make a triangle, which allows for a perfect rectangle shape to insert your zipper. I wasn’t paying attention to the rectangle shape not being a V shape I wanted, until after I had already serged, turned, and topstitched, the entire hood and almost full neckline.
As I was about to finish the topstitching, I looked at it and went, oh *%*%*%*. So then I tried to fix it and my machine ate it and there was some more *%*%*%*. My husband suggested I take a break at that point, which I ignored (not stubborn), and I sat there for 30 minutes mulling over ideas. After all that, I couldn’t see any way around it, so I grabbed my pen and started drawing. I drew the V shape I wanted, blended into the neckline I already had. Then I topstitched my pen markings and into the current topstitch. Grabbed my scissors and cut out the extra fabric, just short of the sorta V shape stitching. Fortunately it is a relaxed look and knit doesn’t fray so it actually works, even if it’s not the prettiest stitching or V shape, I’ve ever done.
After I finished sewing these all up, I realized that both the Brassie Joggers and Mama Lucy have been updated since I purchased them, and now I want to make more pairs to try out the updated versions, although, I like the fit I have, so maybe I won’t mess with it, maybe.
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Sew Gr8ful 