Picture it, summer 2020, summer time and those of us privileged enough to still have a job are sent to work from home. I can’t not be grateful enough to say that I was in that camp. Not only have I always wanted to work from home, but also just to have a position during this very weird time.
Now that that has been addressed, I had to figure out how to dress when I was working from home. I’ve always had two wardrobes, one for work, and one for home life. Your work clothes are nicer and more appropriate for the job.
But putting on what I consider my ‘nice’ clothes everyday just to wrestling a 5lb deaf cat to be able to attend a web meeting didnt sound like those nice clothes would stay nice for very long. As I have always wanted to work from home I knew too that I couldn’t just put on a pair of sweats and that old bleach t-shirt everyone as. You know the one, from high school, that may have a hole or two, is too large and you do all things grubby around the house in, but is oh so comfortable. Because that path, while extremely tempting would lead to a loss in productivity. And we just cannot have that, because lets face it, no one was prepared for the pandemic to hit, and some companies… lets just say were not prepared for their teams to be sent home full time and productivity was going to suffer anyways.
So I needed new clothes, but really, I can make any excuse sound reasonable for new clothes. But recently I’ve been learning a lot about fast fashion and its effects on our planet, also a pandemic cost a lot to live through. I normally don’t buy a lot of fast fashion to begin with, unless it is for work pieces, and instead prefer to look first a second-hand stores. But again, that’s not really an option when everything is closed for public health and safety. Oh buddy, but once the pandemic is over watch out Macklemore.
So logically I decided to make some very snazzy work PJ’s. I’m talking with the piped trim, the nice buttons, the kind you see the dashing father wearing in black and white movies. Now, this is the part where I must confess. I had, at this point in time three sewing machines, none of which worked very well. And my experience with clothes making was limited. I had made a few skirts, and a handful of other pieces but mainly resorting to hand sewing due to a deep-seated intimidation of the fast and loud running motors of my machine sewing.
However I wasn’t going to let that stop me, I had the whole summer break from school to figure out a pattern or to and perfect my pj’s. And the best part, even if they didn’t look the best no one would see them, because we were not going any were anytime soon. So after weeks of research I found the perfect pattern, the Carlyon PJ pattern by closet case, and ordered the fabric and trim. And this was the start of a very not at all unexpected journey, as I took that pattern and made myself the PJs of my dreams, though not perfect becoming more comfortable with my sewing machine along the way. I loved the construction of the pants so much that I made everyone a pair of PJ pants for xmas with this pattern.
I orginally wrote this post up and intended to have it published differently. Right now the site doesn’t really have traffic and thats ok. But if anyone did make it this far I hope that you were able to find something enjoyable to learn and concure in the covid summer of 2020.
Happy new year everyone.
