Monday 13 June 2022

spring sewing: a giant green bathrobe

 Well, this turned out even less seasonally appropriate than I expected. 

As I said in my plan, I've been thinking for a while about replacing the dressing gown I made in 2018. There is so much wrong with it. My review of it was mixed even at the time, but the garment has aged really badly on all fronts. The fabric had zero recovery and looked like shit after six months. The shoulder seams are halfway down my arms now. The pockets are especially unsightly even though I stopped using them years ago. I mentioned in my review that the "facing" was actually just the entire front piece cut again, but I left out the bit where you were supposed to hand sew the entire thing to the side seams, and 2018 Jen's hand sewing has not held up well. I also went on a weird journey with the fabric combination where I started off unsure, made my peace with it the first few times I wore it, and then took violently against it. So when I started looking to replace it, I wanted something very different. 

I purchased the fabric from Fabric Godmother, and it's listed as "velvet bamboo towelling". It's extremely uncommon, almost unheard of, for me to spend £70 on one piece of fabric, but I couldn't get the vision of a giant full-length hooded bathrobe in pale sage green out of my mind. I thought about it for a month, and the vision did not lessen its appeal, so I went for it. The fabric is lovely - the right side feels and behaves like velvet and the wrong side is regular towelling, so it's both super soft and fine to put on directly out of the bath. The one thing I will say is that the shedding while cutting and working with it is something else. By the time I was done making it I was entirely covered in fluff and thanking Past Jen profusely for not bothering to change out of her pyjamas yet. 

The pattern I used is Burda 6740, which was the only one I could find designed for a regular towelling bathrobe rather than floaty silky things. It's fine. It worked well enough. Would neither warn against nor actively recommend. I added about four inches to the longer length to get it to hit my ankles like I wanted. If I were to make it again I would draft myself an extra pattern piece for the facing; the facing as designed just stops at the shoulder seams and you have to hand sew it to the seam allowance there, and I would have much preferred to have an additional piece to cover the back neckline as well. I think it looks weird as is. I added a hanging loop and belt loops as the pattern does not include these. The instructions direct you to make a thread chain to serve as belt loops but this never works for me. I don't know if it's my substandard thread chain making skills or just our overly aggressive washing machine, but they're always gone by the third wear. 

You may notice the facing in some of these pictures. I haven't anchored it down at the free edge yet because I can't decide how to do it. The pattern instructs to topstitch it down, and I would have been happy to do that on regular towelling but I don't think it would look good on this velvet stuff. Stitching on the right side for the pockets and hem was a fucking task, I tell you. But I also really don't want to have hand sewing on my dressing gown again. So it's still flapping free right now until I work out the best way to make it behave itself. 

Minor quibbles aside, this is exactly what I wanted and I'm very pleased with it. It's probably too warm and snuggly to get much use during the summer months, though rest assured that if it's another crap summer I will be wearing this as much as possible. I will be soft but furious. I don't have need for more than one bathrobe so I suspect it's unlikely I'll use this pattern again unless a close family member asks for one for Christmas (I'm not going to offer, they'll have to ask unprompted), but I will be keeping it just in case. 


Up next: more trousers, most likely!

Burda 6740 dressing gown

Fabric: Velvet bamboo towelling from Fabric Godmother
Cost: £70
Pattern details: Unisex bathrobe in three lengths, with either hood or shawl collar, tie belt, and patch pockets
Size: L at the shoulders blended out to XL in the hips
Alterations: Several inches of length added to View B
Would make again/would recommend: No/Eh

1 comment:

  1. Tissue paper on top can help with sewing odd fabric, although you'll want a slightly longer stitch length to remove it neatly afterwards.

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