Bryan's Christmas Pants 2020

I spent a lot of time at fabric stores purchasing mask fabric this year.  Every time I had to actually go in to JoAnn's I noticed this Nightmare Before Christmas fuzzy fleece fabric.  I'm not usually a fan of this thick polyester stuff but I just kept thinking about what I could make for Bryan out of this fabric. I eventually realized that his comfy Storm Trooper pants were a little worse for wear and he could probably use another pair of fleece pants for around the house...this is the perfect project for that fabric! 

I picked up this pajama pant pattern from Seams Fabric called the Eastwood Pajamas by Thread Theory.  They have 3 options varying in difficulty for these pants, of course, I did the most complicated pattern knowing that I would learn something about garment making along the way. Bryan is really tall and pants are a hard fit for him, especially in a tall and skinny fit. While making these I added 3 inches to the length of the leg in this pattern so they wouldn't be waders like his other ones.

I usually think I know more than I do when I start making a piece of clothing. I read through the directions a number of times, looked for some videos online, tried to visually prep myself.

All the parts of the fly were really confusing to me.  I know that I need to follow the pattern line by line and that it'll eventually make {more} sense than if I was to try to do it without a pattern. I cut all the pieces I needed but I still wanted a better visual.  Thankfully Thread Theory has a blog and posts their pattern details. This particular post was SO helpful in making these pants: https://blog.threadtheory.ca/2018/08/08/eastwood-pajamas-sew-along-day-3/

Now since I was using much heavier fabric than the pattern calls for I had already decided not to create a button-fly, just one where the fly would open/be useful.  It still didn't make sense with all of the pieces but I pushed forward. I turns out I could do one less layer of fabric since I didn't need to hide a button in the fly, which is good because the fabric thickness was building up fast. 

(The really important thing on the above step was to stitch the rectangle panel only to the right edge of the inside hem, not through all the layers because that would close up the fly)

Pinning fly for top-stitching 

Pockets!

I was not going to put in the extra work into making the tie out of the same fabric. After looking at grosgrain ribbon options and other ideas I ultimately decided using the current fabric would be the best thing. I cut a 2-inch wide strip and folded it in on itself, pinned it and zigzag stitched it.

Button-hole stithced around the tie-holes

I still need to finish the bottom hem of the pants but I think they're a hit.