Butterick Granny Nightie!

 

My sewing took a bit of turn over the last week or so! I decided I needed a new warm flannel nightgown (just in time for our cold snap here!) I have a couple of older thrifted patterns like this (this Butterick 4939 is the newest one, and it's from 2006) because it's so hard to find a sleepwear pattern currently that isn't a tee and pants set. I prefer a good old granny nightgown! 

I chose View B, mostly because I was a bit short on fabric. Actually I was quite a bit short. I had bought this pretty floral flannel on sale at Fabricland and when I went back to top up, there wasn't any more. So I had to puzzle it out. 

As it turns out, this was quite creatively satisfying. I had an old pair of flannel pj bottoms that I've been meaning to cut up to reuse - they were in great shape but somehow too small... They were an offwhite so I thought they'd blend okay with this print. And let's face it, this is just for sleeping ;) 

So I cut the yoke and yoke facing from the pants. I had to cut the full back with a side seam right down the middle, and was able to cut the two front yoke pieces with just a bit of seam along the edge. If I'd narrowed the yoke first (which I should have done, as the shoulders are quite wide - I could have taken each outer side in by almost an inch) I'd have avoided seams altogether. It's very wearable though, and I'm not going back to take anything in on the shoulders as I've french seamed everything; side seams, sleeves and armscye. It will have to do! 

I also had to cut the sleeves a lot shorter than the pattern, as I was out of fabric. So when I finished the main body, I felt that the stark yoke didn't really look great. Sigh. I made covered buttons from the original green fabric, and that added a bit of tie-in. But it still wasn't quite right. So instead of hemming the sleeves, I cut a 5" wide cuff from the remainder of the pants - that's as big as I could go before running out of white flannel. That really tied it together and it was starting to look good. 

But then my husband offhandedly remarked that I could embroider on the yoke. And I thought, not sure I want to embroider them, but I have two longish, narrow strips of the green flannel left over and I could probably harvest some motifs from there. So I did -- I chose the bits that I thought I could get most of a flower from and fused them to some Steam-a-Seam. Then I cut my chosen motifs and a few little extra leaves and added foliage and put together a design. I really love it! It was really fun to noodle around with the fused fabric and try to see how I could make complete motifs. And they are fused on for now, although I will likely have to stitch them down as well so that they stay put. 

Anyhow, for a project that was supposed to be a fast & easy, functional garment, this turned out to  be challenging in the sense of finding enough fabric and getting a look I liked. I certainly didn't expect to be spending an afternoon choosing decorative add-ons! I had a lot of fun, though, and now I have the perfect William Morris feeling nightgown, both useful and beautiful.