foundation fabric + lakeside pajamas

I remember meeting Shayla Wolf (of Sassafras Lane Designs) years ago at Quilt Market, when I worked at Dear Stella. When we finally met in person, I immediately realized 1) she is a kindred spirit and 2) she undoubtedly loves color.

Fast-forward five years later, and Shayla’s first fabric collection is about to hit shops! True to form, she’s created a group of designs in a range of colors spanning the rainbow. Foundation is made up of hand-drawn motifs from Shayla’s sketchbook, with a nod to her background in architecture studies. Most of the collection features rich, saturated ground colors that will brighten up any fabric stash, but she made sure to include neutral and low-volume options as well.

I do dabble in quilting from time to time, but for this blog tour I wanted to stick to my favorite kind of sewing – garments for meeee. I don’t often use quilting cotton in my garment sewing anymore, but I do love using fun prints to make pajama bottoms. It’s important to me that I make things that I will actually use, and I definitely use pajama bottoms. The pattern I’ve been using over and over (for years!) is the Lakeside Pajamas by Grainline Studio, so as soon as I received my yardage of Foundation I knew that was the project I’d make.

I’ve made these pajama shorts a few times now, but I perfected them this time around. First, I added 1″ in length. I like the super-short length for sleeping, but I wanted to add some length for when I’m running errands around the neighborhood. Also, the last time I made these I somehow made the bias binding too narrow. It wasn’t a huge deal but I prefer the look of slightly thicker bias tape, so I made sure to cut mine 1.25″ wide. I know some people don’t like sewing bias binding but I loooove it. And not to ~brag~ but I’m really happy with how neatly mine came out this time.

I used 43352-4 for the shorts, a rich true blue color with fine white triangle motifs, and 43358-21 for the bias binding. The shade of grey is really lovely and I will definitely be using it here and there in other projects.

When I was sewing these up I knew I had to give a little nod to my rainbow-loving friend, Shay. I used a charm pack she sent me and chose four colors to piece together into the waistband – I think each section is 1.5″ wide. I love how the color peeks out : )

Side note – I slept in these the night before we took photos. I had to test them out… for science. I’m happy to report these get a 10/10.

Here’s one more pic of the inside of the waistband. I used the selvage as an inside tag – it makes me so happy to see that little detail!

Shayla wrote all about her experience designing this collection in her kick-off blog post. I loved reading about her process and the excitement that went into creating it, and all of the projects in her Lookbook are so well done. Shayla is an amazingly talented maker, and I’m so looking forward to watching her continue to create.

I’m excited to see what you guys make with Foundation! Want to see what other peeps are making? Follow along on the Foundation blog tour:

Schedule:

Tuesday, February 6th: Shayla Wolf | Sassafras Lane Designs

Wednesday, February 7th: Giuseppe Ribaudo | Giucy Giuce

Thursday, February 8th: Tara Curtis | Wefty Needle

Friday, February 9th: Nichole Vogelsinger | Wild Boho

Saturday, February 10th: Robin Long | Robin Ruth Design

Sunday, February 11th: Jessie Stern | Jessie Stern Sews (me!)

Monday, February 12th: Jessica VanDenburgh | Sew Many Creations

Tuesday, February 13th: Kristy Wolf | Wolf Creek Quilting

Wednesday, February 14th: Sarah Sharp | No Hats in the House

Thursday, February 15th: Nicole Daksiewicz | Modern Handcraft

Friday, February 16th: Elise Baek | Elise & Emelie

Saturday, February 17th: Kaitlyn Howell | Knot and Thread Design

Sunday, February 18th: Sarah Thomas | Sariditty

Monday, February 19th: Jo Westfoot | The Crafty Nomad

Tuesday, February 20th: Shayla Wolf | Recap