I thought that Stella’s pyjama party would be a good opportunity to use a recently acquired vintage Butterick pattern to make Stella a new nightie.

It really doesn’t come much simpler than this – raglan sleeves, almost identical front and back pieces, wrists and neckline gathered with elastic, and an optional frill around the bottom. I had some spotty cotton/lycra interlock in stash (from Spotlight, I think) which I thought would be comfortable, so whipped up the nightie – sans frill – and tried it on Stella. She hated it. Didn’t like the “big and wide” sleeves. So I added the frill for extra length, and gave it to Clare.

Yes, that’s a size 6 dress on a 10 1/2 year old girl! The sleeves are more 3/4 length than full length on her, but Clare was very happy with her new nightie! So, to provide Stella with a nightie more to her liking – after all, it was for her party – I pulled out the Oliver + S Hopscotch dress pattern yet again, cut it out in size 6, and lengthened it.

I kept things super simple by not adding any fancy trims. The neck band was cut from the same fabric as the rest of the nightie, and I used a small zig-zag to secure the sleeve and bottom hems. I’m starting to feel that I could almost sew up this pattern in my sleep!

She was VERY happy with this one. But did she wear it for her party? Um, no. Both she and Clare wore the pyjamas I made them for last winter. But they did wear their new nighties the morning of Stella’s actual birthday!

This morning I wrote a list of completed projects that are as yet unblogged – and there were more than ten! Hopefully over the long weekend I’ll get a chance to get a few more blog posts written, before the content and details of the patterns and construction processes completely vanish from my memory.