Fuzzy soft fleece pajamas are comfy and perfect for chilly nights. Learn how to make fleece pajama pants here
Hey y’all, today I’m going to show you how to make fleece pj pants. Are you a person that gets cold easily? Then based on everything I’ve learned about fiber content and construction into fabric over my 30+ years of sewing, these are the perfect pants to make and wear because they are very warm. So in this post I’ll be sharing a free sewing pattern to make pajama pants with pockets and an elastic waist. I’ve got both a video tutorial and written instructions that will help you create these comfy fuzzy pj pants.
Key skills for this project
In this project to make fleece pj pants you’ll use and/or practice these skills:
- Using a printer to print a PDF sewing pattern
- Re-sizing a pajama sewing pattern for sizes other than a women’s size small
- Basic sewing machine operation to sew straight lines and curves
- Working with fuzzy fleece fabric
- Basic pants construction with pockets
- Sewing a fold over waistband casing
- Inserting elastic
Before You Get Started
This pattern is not the one I recommend for absolute beginners, as both the fleece fabric and the addition of pockets are a little more challenging. If you’re a sewing beginner, try this tutorial for pajama pants instead.
Before you get started on this project, gather up your sewing machine and basic sewing notions. You’ll also need a home printer to print the PDF sewing pattern for the pants. See the section below for how to get the pattern.
You’ll need to make sure your sewing machine has a zig zag stitch. As fleece stretches, you need to sew it with a stretch stitch.
One more thing you’ll need is the measurements of the person who will be wearing these trousers. You’ll want a hip, waist, and inseam measurement. If the person isn’t nearby for you to measure, find out what size they wear in a brand you can find an online size chart for and get measurements from that chart.
Could you just buy fleece PJ pants? Yes, but in my experience they 1) generally don’t have pockets, and 2) tend to be made from lighter weight fleece, which 3) makes them not as warm as these.
Materials to Make Fleece PJ Pants
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To make your fleece pyjama pants you’ll need:
- 1 1/2 yards of 60 inch wide fleece fabric for the women’s size small shown in the post. If the person you are sewing for is larger or smaller, you’ll need to adjust the amount of fabric. This post shows how to calculate how much fabric to buy. Look for the following terms describing the fabric if you’re shopping online: teddy fleece, plush fleece, faux fur fleece, sherpa fleece. If your fabric has a print that you want to match, buy extra. My plaids don’t line up on the pair I sewed, but I didn’t have enough fabric to pattern match. Could you sew this pattern in flannel or quilting cotton for lighter weight pants? Sure, but the focus of this post and all the tips will be for fleece fabric.
- 1 inch wide elastic equal to the waist measurement of the person the pants are for. Important: if the person wants to wear the pants below their natural waist, take the measurement where they want the waistband to sit. Learn more about different types of elastic here. I prefer knit or non roll elastic for these pants.
- Sewing machine, thread, scissors, seam ripper, pins or sewing clips, safety pin or bodkin (affiliate links)
- Optional: electric shears (affiliate link) I find these cut thick fleece fabric much more easily than regular scissors. You can see my electric scissors in use in this post.
- The pattern. See section below for how to get it.
How to Get the Free Pajama Pants Pattern
The free pattern used in this post is sized for hips up to 36 inches and assumes 7 inches of wearing ease above the hip circumference.
To get this pattern, you must either be a free newsletter subscriber or have purchased a gallery access pass. Then click your preferred option from the buttons below. Existing newsletter subscribers should look at the bottom of the most recent Friday newsletter for the current free pattern gallery password. If you purchased the all access pass you’ll log in to your shop account to download the pattern. Note that the free version of the pattern does not have printable instructions so you’ll need to refer to this post for instructions.
How to to Make Fleece PJ Pants – Video Tutorial
I’ve got a video below showing how to sew the fleece pj pants, which you can also watch on YouTube here if you prefer or if the video below won’t load for some reason.
Written Fuzzy Pajama Pant Instructions
Here are written instructions showing how to make a pair of pj pants. If any of these are confusing you can refer to the video above for help.
Printing and Cutting
- After printing and sizing your pattern, lay it out on your folded fabric and cut your pieces out
- Pro tip: before laying out your pattern, decide which side of your fabric is the right side and which is the wrong side and keep that in mind while cutting and sewing. On my fabric one side was fuzzier, and I decided I wanted that side against my skin so I used it as the wrong side of the fabric. You get to decide what you want to do on your project.
- Pro tip: Make sure your fabric stretch runs horizontally across your fabric.
- Cut out 2 fronts, 2 backs, and 4 pockets. The fronts and backs should be mirror images of each other, and you should have 2 pockets that are mirror images of the other 2 pockets.
- Pro tip: check out this post to print match your fabric, which I did not do on this pair and wish I had. You can see how my plaids don’t line up across the front or on the side seams, but I didn’t have enough fabric to pattern match.
Sewing the Pockets
- Fold down the waist casing on one front or back piece. It should cover the elastic width with a little room to stitch the casing. Mark where the raw edge of the fabric will be. Place the pocket right sides together with the side seam and line up the top of a pocket to just above that casing raw edge line. Pin or clip the pocket to the side seam and repeat with each front and back piece at the side seam, making sure all the pocket pieces are lined up to the same depth from the waistline at the top. Stitch the pockets at the side seams.
- Pro tip: Since fleece generally has some stretch, make sure to use a stretch stitch when sewing it. More about stretch stitches here.
- Fold the two front pockets wrong sides together with the fronts and topstitch the side seam edges.
- Unfold all the pockets. Place one front piece and one back piece right sides together. Align the side seam and pockets. Stitch down the side seam across onto the pocket, around the pocket edge and back onto the side seam on the other side of the pocket opening. Stitch the remainder of these seam.
- Pro Tip: It can help to clip into your seam allowances at the top and bottom of your pocket opening stitching.
Stitch the Pants Legs
- Place one front/back combo right sides together with the other front/back combo piece. Stitch the center front crotch curve to the other center front crotch curve. Repeat with the back crotch curves.
- Open the pants up, matching up the crotch seams. Pin or clip the inseams together from the hem to the crotch. The back pieces will be wider than the front legs, and that’s as designed, so just match the raw edges.
- Stitch the inseam in one long seam.
Construct the Elastic Waist & Hem
- Fold down the waist to the wrong side inside the pants. The raw edge should just cover the tops of the pockets. Pin and stitch around the waistline, leaving a gap to insert the elastic.
- Use a safety pin or bodkin attached to the end of the elastic to insert it in the casing channel, being careful not to twist the elastic or lose the end in the casing.
- Pro tip: mark the ends of the elastic while it’s laid out flat so you can make sure it’s not twisted
- Pro tip: pin the other end of the elastic to the casing next to the gap to make sure you don’t accidentally pull it into the casing
- Overlap the ends of the elastic and stitch them together with a zig zag stitch.
- Pull the elastic into the casing and stitch the gap in the casing closed.
- Pull on the waistband a few times to distribute the fabric evenly along it.
- Fold the bottom edges of the legs to the wrong side and stitch around to hem. I prefer about a 1 inch hem on fleece.
Things To Avoid
Fuzzy fabrics can be a little bit more difficult to work with than fabrics like flannel or quilting cotton. You’ll want to avoid the fabrics getting stuck at seam allowances. You’ll also want to make sure that you check the nap on the fabric before you cut. The post linked below has all kinds of tips to help you work with these fleece fabrics.
Pajama Pants FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions I see from people sewing PJ pants:
- How many yards of fabric do I need for PJ pants?
- It depends on the size and fabric width. Remember that fabric comes in 45″ and 60″ widths. The range is from 1/2 a yard for a baby to 3 yards of 45″ fabric for a large and tall person. See this post for more information about how to figure out how much fabric to buy.
- What are fuzzy pajama pants made of?
- Look for the following terms describing the fabric: teddy fleece, plush fleece, faux fur fleece, sherpa fleece. Those fleece fabrics are made of either polyester or acrylic fibers or a blend of the two. They are thicker, warmer, and have more of a nap than plain fleece. This post has tips for working with these types of fuzzy fabrics.
- How do you make pajama pants baggier?
- Draft your pattern with more ease. The pair in the video and images in this post has about 7 inches of ease above my hip measurement. Follow the steps for resizing the pattern to have 8-9 inches of ease above the hip measurement. This post talks more about pattern ease.
- What goes good with pajama pants?
- Check out the patterns on this site for a men’s t-shirt, a women’s tank top, a kid’s t-shirt and a baby t-shirt to add a matching top to your pajamas.
Laura
Thank you!! for taking the time to post this! I have been sewing leggings for winter and pockets are a must for me but I couldn’t figure out how to keep them from being all wonky. That little extra bit of sewing on the front was it. Yea!