toile talk: the never ending leather jacket quest

Last week was rougher than I'd anticipated. Partly for good reasons - I got a last-minute appointment for my first dose of the Covid vaccine and spent the following couple of days cycling through extremes of temperature and trying to sleep it off. I am incredibly grateful and relieved to have some protection for my asthmatic self and hope it'll ease some of the anxiety about the world opening up again. But the latter half of the week... I've tried several times over the past few days to write something about Sarah Everard's murder and the horrifying range of responses to it, and I just can't. It makes me too sad. But I will say that she was kidnapped fifteen minutes from my house, and the proximity of it all has made everything hit me a little harder than it should. 

All of which is to say, I did not have it in me to take any photos last week. But now I have! What I'm about to show you is one of the items from my autumn plan six months ago (I am Good at Things), and it is yet another attempt at having a stupid biker jacket. This one is McCalls 8121, the Nicole Miller pattern from last year. I did in fact make this last year, in an attempt to use up some stuff before moving. I didn't photograph it at the time, thinking it hadn't worked that well, but coming back to it three months later I like it a lot more and I have a lot to say about it. 

New garden! No more palm tree! I don't know if this snail wall here is going to be my new permanent photo background (I'm going to try a few different things), but it has the distinct advantage of being right next to the kitchen door and affording much less interaction with the cold and wet and drizzle that is March. 

This toile is made out of one of the first fabrics I ever bought. I'm not exactly sure what it is - it's cotton, but it's also been treated with something to make it stiffer and and possibly slightly water-resistant. When I bought it I had only made one dress pattern ever, bought this to make it again, and quickly realised it wasn't going to work. It sat in my cupboard until Patrick and I moved to a flat that had no fabric cupboard and I began using it to line the wooden box I stored my fabric in. When we planned to move again and regain a Jen cupboard, I thought I might as well use it up. I think it photographs much better than it looks in person; it has gold butterflies on it that very much have the look of "five-year-old doing potato prints", which will absolutely stop me wearing it, but they're not so noticeable in the photos and just blend into a general impression of colourful and shiny. I think it looks particularly nice in the photo below and I will probably keep an eye out for sunset-evocative fabric that I could use to remake this in a wearable way.

First off, the design of the jacket is really great. It has all the biker jacket details I've been coveting: asymmetric front, collar, zipped sleeves. It also has welt pockets, which I didn't put in the toile but would in a real version. It's lined, and the design is such that you have hidden pops of lining fabric on the outside - the under collar is cut from the lining fabric, and my personal favourite detail, a lined back shoulder tuck which is almost entirely hidden but gave me a tremendous sense of satisfaction. I got super excited when I discovered it and I really wish it was more common for patterns to include things like this. A patch pocket does NOT count as a "beautiful detail", please try harder.

What I liked less were some of the construction methods. To construct this jacket, the directions have you completely finish the body before you even start on the sleeves. Lining and hem and everything. You then sew each sleeve and lining up as one piece. It's very weird and I'm not at all sure why they do it that way. At first I thought it might be to eliminate the need for slipstitching the sleeve lining to the zip tape, but nope, you still have to do that. There is a baffling amount of slipstitching in general given that a jacket should be a pretty hard-wearing item and faux leather is an explicitly recommended fabric. The hem is slipstitched (despite the fact that the armholes are still open and the jacket could be turned through them), and then the sleeve lining is slipstitched to the armhole as a final step. I had this on a coat pattern once before, years ago, and it was the worst idea. I swore I would never do it again. If I were to remake this properly I would want to change all of this to eliminate as much of the hand sewing as possible, but I haven't yet worked out what I would do instead. 

As this was a toile I made it up as is, and we're going to look at some of my fit issues:

First and most obvious: FBA very much needed. I knew this was going to be a thing but after so many failed jackets I wasn't prepared to put the work into something I might have hated. I don't think I need masses of room but an extra couple of centimetres would go a long way. It's a princess seam jacket so that should, I hope, be fairly simple. I also think I could do with a little more room in the bicep.

Second and also fairly obviously: the back doesn't fit properly when the jacket is zipped. I either need to shorten it so it stops before it meets the Butt Shelf or widen it so it hangs straight down, and I'm leaning towards the former. I think that will look a little more even overall. Also I apologise for the quality of this particular photo - I only realised later that I was standing mostly out of shot every time I turned around. I miss having a very specific stone to stand on under the tree (that is the only thing I miss; in every other way my living conditions have upgraded substantially. Well, apart from the lack of doodle puppy living next door, but at some point in the next couple of years we will get a dog of our very own to remedy that).

In conclusion: not bad! Promising! Best result so far! I might even allow myself a tiny sliver of optimism! I will probably attempt another test run with fitting adjustments/pockets/different construction method before going anywhere near another piece of faux leather, but since I'll soon be able to go to the markets again and get decent quality fabric for cheap I'm going to aim for a test that I can and will wear. This one is too potato-print (and the wrinkles look so much worse and more obvious because of whatever the stiffening treatment is), but the fact that it photographs well means I can look back at this post and feel encouraged, which is more than any previous jacket has given me. 

Up next will be the first and only thing I've made this year! Yes, it's a basic knit top I've already made several times, but it's a thing and I made it, which for a little while there I was worried would never happen again. It might be a literal year to the day since I first went into quarantine and I might be full of feelings about that (most of them are exhaustion), but things are moving, I made a thing, and I've remembered how to write. It's okay. 

autumn sewing: Hepburn tops and Plausible Deniability Trousers

 2021 is here! So far I've been alternately very sad and angry that we've Brexited, scared about how fast the new Covid variant is spreading in London and how poorly the response to it is being managed, and also somehow riding on a very small wave of motivation to get stuff done. The decorators are starting work on our green parrots bedroom today, I've drawn up approximately ninety lists and spreadsheets to manage our move and my health and general survival, and this week's plan is to get sewing again. 

Today I'm going to talk about a couple of things I made towards the tail end of last year and struggled to formulate useful thoughts on:

To begin, the Charm Patterns Hepburn top. The pattern is a mix-and-match one fairly typical of the company's style, and so far I've only made this one variant - basic dolman sleeve round-neck top. I have, however, made it four times, and three of them are made from this exact fabric. I bought two metres of it, ended up with closer to three metres because there was a big hole cut in it and he gave me that bit for free, and I thought I'd make a full loungewear set out of it. Instead I made three of these (two short sleeve, one long) because it is my perfect T-shirt. The pattern has French darts that create cup sizes up to G-H, thus allowing me to use a snuggly low-stretch knit and have it fit comfortably. The fabric and pattern together make up the nicest T-shirt I have ever owned, just beating out the Betty Boop T-shirt I bought from New Look in 1998 that was good enough quality to survive on heavy rotation for a full decade. 

However - and this is the reason the review took so long - I don't want this to come across as an unconditional recommendation for the pattern. I love the end product, I will make it again, I may even make some of the other versions. But I feel like this is one of the most "if you like that sort of thing" patterns I've ever used, and if you'd already dismissed it I wouldn't recommend you change your mind. If you don't like dolman sleeves or are bothered by any excess fabric near the armpit, if you don't like turned and stitched necklines... there are many reasons you might not like this. 

For me, it's amazing. My style in separates is very much black on top/colour on the bottom (I actually wish I had more colourful tops but I've never found a way to style them that I like) so this goes with every single thing I might ever need to wear it with. I love the neckline, I like that the back is a tiny bit different, and miraculously, it fits me in a way that doesn't ride up. I will wear these three identical tops to death, and if the fabric is still for sale at the market when we get out of lockdown (sob), I will buy a bunch more of it because it's perfect. I'm even looking forward to picking up some velvet and making the version with billowy sleeves!

One thing I would say even to people who don't have any misgivings about the style or construction is that this pattern really, really shows up mediocre fabric. Allow me to demonstrate:

This fabric is a ponte from Fabric Land that I've used before, and thought it was... fine. Nothing special, nothing terrible. I was happy to buy it again for this colour, which I really like on me. But in this pattern every single one of the fabric's weak points is really, really obvious. It's not thick enough to smooth nor thin enough to drape, it's a little too synthetic and a little too shiny (in an unintentional way), it clings oddly, and having a seam in this fabric running down the top of your arm is not something I would recommend. I will probably not keep this version, which is a shame because the colour is SO good. 

While we're here, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my Plausible Deniability Trousers. These were on my autumn sewing plans and also one of my Minerva projects. I tend to prefer not to mix the two so that I can keep my Minerva projects separate and not have a hole in my documentation here, but there was good quality black jersey on offer and I couldn't say no. 

I debated using an actual trouser pattern, but I didn't want to rush into that untested and had no back-up ponte lying around, so I made the pyjama bottoms from McCalls 7875. I've already made these twice in thicker jerseys and so I knew the fit would be OK. Rather than make the hem bands I just lengthened the pattern. I overcompensated in length slightly and I've taken them up a bit since I took these photos. They look fine here with wedge sandals, but... I am not wearing these with wedge sandals. I am wearing these with multiple pairs of furry slipper socks shoved inside an ankle boot. 

I'm really happy with my PDTs. They fulfil the "I don't want to go out today, but I could" niche perfectly. I don't know how many more pairs I want - it would be very easy to just switch to a wardrobe full of tracksuit bottoms and I know that wouldn't be great for my self-esteem - but I'm so pleased to have these. They have enabled me to leave the house more than once since I made them. 

Actual finished garment posts might be a bit sporadic for the next month or so while we get ready to move and get settled in the new place, but I do intend to carry on posting. I'm still working on a write-up of my most common fitting adjustments and I'm also going to do before/after posts on my new sewing space. Plus hopefully more! One of my non-sewing resolutions for 2021 is to finally unstick my writer's block and I want to be able to put together text posts that don't require the super-specific scope of you have to review this thing you made. Writing! I can do it! 

Charm Patterns Hepburn top

Fabric: French terry-type black ponte from Walthamstow

Cost: £6

Pattern details: Knit top with a V back, French darts and many different sleeve, neckline, and collar variations

Size: 10 G/H, blending out to 14 in the hips

Alterations: None

Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Maybe

McCalls 8117: Jen is every Spice Girl at once

Category is: things I made because I knew they would look ridiculous and thus would be amusing to me! 

I freely admit I'm helping the All Spice Girls thing along by wearing it with leopard-trimmed tracksuit bottoms (and having vaguely Posh Spice hair all the time), but they happened to be what I was wearing when I tried it on for the first time and looked in the mirror. I tried to find a more appropriate pairing for this top, but there just... isn't one. At least not in my wardrobe. Sadly I own exactly zero pairs of moonboots. 

This is McCalls 8117 (they've also named it Heather, but... no thanks), a release from a few months ago that made me laugh for quite a long time. I don't make a habit of buying patterns because they're stupid-looking (the last time I did it was two years ago, and that doesn't really count because it was secretly a really great pattern) but this one was so hilariously overwrought that I couldn't help it. One shoulder! Asymmetric waist tie! Option for a peplum and/or one single long sleeve! Plus a third view that I thought I might actually like and wear, but we'll get to that. 

First of all, my thoughts on the finished product: I expected to get something so bad it was unphotographable, and instead I got something pretty bad but acceptable to put on the internet. I wouldn't call it a fail, since I was never trying to make something I'd actually wear, and I will probably keep it for comedy purposes/All the Spice Girls Halloween costume. This does not look good, but it is enjoyably amusing, and I do have some thoughts on the pattern that might be useful to anyone considering it.

The fabric I used is a piece of weird glittery rib knit that I got from the Abakhan remnant bins. I bought it thinking I was going to start incorporating shell pink into my wardrobe (which I'm still not opposed to), but I've never used it. It's too glittery for everyday and too dull for evenings. It was also an absolute bastard to work with - if the right sides touch at all they stick and I had to literally rip the pieces apart constantly - and I'm not at all sorry it's ended up as a comedy toile. 

My original intention was to make the single-sleeve view (which I considered the most hilarious) but got view A and view B confused while I was sewing and ended up sewing the armhole and lining shut before getting to the sleeve. In retrospect, I'm quite glad. The top is fully lined so requires no hemming at all unless you put the sleeve on it, and hemming this fabric would have been... a job. 

A piece of very narrow elastic is sewn into the neckline to get a close fit, and that works very nicely. What I would absolutely do if I ever made this again is to sew elastic to the seam under the bust on the left side. You can see very clearly in these photos how it's gaping (and these are the better photos because my underboob does not need to be on the internet) and if I lift my arms without due care and attention the entire thing can end up under my armpit. If I ever have occasion to wear this top out of the house I will definitely bodge a piece of elastic to the back of the seam.

(As I went to take this photo my upstairs neighbours suddenly opened their bedroom window and I'd been really hoping nobody would see me dressed like this. Oh well.)

Would I recommend doing this? I mean, no. Clearly not. But I will say that purely as a sewing project, it was quite enjoyable. Not having to hem or bind necklines and armholes is a really nice change, and if you were prepared to do a bit of topstitching you could make the finish on this version completely clean. If one of my more... rave-inclined friends who fit a similar size asked me to make them one of these, I would do so quite happily. But only because I already own the pattern, I'm not suggesting anyone buy this expecting it to bring them joy. 

 Of course, I also wanted to try what I thought would be the actually nice version that I might get wear out of. You will very quickly see the problem I ran into.

So there is no photograph or drawing of this view on a model, just a disembodied garment. From the disembodied garment illustration I assumed that the finished product would be cropped, but would end at, you know, my waist. Admittedly I have a much larger bust than the pattern calls for, but that's never really been an issue with jersey tops before. The effect you're supposed to get is a nice scallop where the two pattern pieces cross over at the hem, but there's not enough length for that so it just looks a bit like my bra is hanging out. 

As you see, the back does sit further down than the front, but still not long enough to reach the top of my ultra-high-waist leggings. Lengthening the back is a simple enough task, but I'm not at all sure how to go about altering the front. I have no idea how you'd do an FBA on this kind of pattern piece, and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't give me enough length by itself. I'm also concerned that just making the pieces wider will result in weird flaps. I would possibly need to elasticate the lower front edges the same way as I would the first version. I'm not opposed to giving it a go the next time I come upon some non-precious jersey, though. 

I don't mind too much that this version is unwearable. Mostly because this fabric (a super mega cheap jersey I bought to toile a different top) is the worst unbreathable poly I've ever encountered. I'm not a fibre snob, as a rule - I'm fortunate not to have the same level of extreme discomfort in synthetics as some of the people I follow - but this is just gross. It's September, I had this on outside for seven minutes with my entire midriff exposed, and I almost died. Shame, because it's a really lovely colour. More purple! More red! 

I shall leave you with my best Posh Point. I went to a Spice Girls dance class last year, where the instructor exhorted us all to pick which one of the five we were and really embody her... then stopped three minutes later to scold some of us for not smiling. I heard at least two other people in the room making outraged noises and muttering "but I'm Posh! I'm clearly Posh!" 

She's a real lay-dee...

What's up next will depend on how this week goes. I got some sort of bug last week (not that one, we're taking part in a study so we've been tested) and it just wiped me clean out. Something I have been considering is writing something - designed to live in my menu bar for new people, but probably as a regular post first - about my body type and usual adjustments, as a reference point for readers wondering how relevant my experience with a pattern will be for them, so if I don't get a project finished that might be the next post. We'll see!

McCalls 8117 tops

Fabric: Glitter rib knit from Abakhan/purple poly jersey from Walthamstow
Cost: Extremely cheap - probably about £5 for both together
Pattern details: Fully lined jersey tops - one-shoulder side-tied top with single long sleeve or peplum/long sleeved crop top with two overlapped front layers
Size: 16
Alterations: None
Would make again/would recommend: Maybe if feeling experimental/No

spring sewing: McCalls 8003

So... this is fun times, isn't it. I've actually been doing fairly well this month, health-wise; I found a couple of systems that seem to be working really well for me and I managed to get back to the gym to take classes with a new instructor, rearrange my eating habits to make slightly more sense, and stay on top of my mental processes enough to actually get things done. So obviously this is the time the world breaks and I have to start prepping to stay inside for weeks (the thing I've been doing by default for the past several years). I want to keep the brainweasels away, so I'm thinking I might try and learn to code or something. And of course, I want to sew. I've actually got a fair bit done over this past week or so, and I'm going to start with one of the first things I made on my new overlocker.

Knit tops with a bit of interest to them are something I always need (I can find no evidence that I've ever come across a woven top I want to wear) and they're not quite as common as I'd like them to be. I'd been looking at McCalls 8003 for a while, and my main concern was that the boob window would be incompatible with my oversized bust and would end up looking indecent. But then there was a sale, and I decided to give it a go with this grey jersey I'd never found the right partner pattern for.

(I got a haircut! I didn't like it on the day because she flattened the absolute shit out of it, but after I washed it myself and styled it to keep a bit of volume in, it's the nicest cut I've had for a while.)

Anyway, it turns out that the boob window doesn't actually interact with the boobs at all, it sits quite high on the upper chest. So there aren't any decency issues. However, this is not what I had assumed when I was cutting out, and as a result the upper piece is very loose on me, as you can no doubt see. I managed to alter things a little and it's settled down a bit after a couple of wears, but I haven't been able to correct it entirely as the extra fabric really needed to come out of the centre front. I also think things are being pulled slightly out of whack by the sleeves - I never normally adjust for my biceps in jersey but this one has surprisingly little stretch given its composition and I could have done with a tiny bit more room. I think this too will correct itself a bit over time as the jersey is forced to deal with me flexing every time I notice a tiny bit more bicep definition. (I promise I don't do this where anyone else can see me, I know how annoying it is!)

The neckline on the pattern is an extremely tight jewel, and I literally couldn't get the neckband over my head. Admittedly I would have scooped it out a bit more even without the neckband issue - I think design-wise the very high neck is the right thing for the pattern, but I never like the look on me. So I hacked at it a bit and made a longer (and thinner! Why are so many neckbands stupidly wide?) band to make it a bit more flattering.

Having got two tops, three pairs of leggings and a dress made in two days with the help of my new friend the overlocker, I was inspired to keep going.

I bought this fabric from Like Sew Amazing last year, and as soon as it arrived I realised my mistake. It's not the fabric's fault - it's very nice. But I'd bought it to make a cropped sweater, and over the years I've realised I just need to stop doing that. I've made so many, and I wear exactly two of them. They're both short-sleeved and black, one plain and one large-scale floral. There are a couple of others I used to wear a lot before the fabric gave out/I realised were slightly too see-through for comfort, but so many of the "oh, I have a metre of fabric, I'll make a cropped sweater" versions just never see the light of day. For me, this style of top is an assistant, not a statement, and there's no point in making eye-catching ones because I'm never going to base an outfit around it. I almost cut into this anyway just to get it out of the stash, but managed to exercise enough wisdom to hold off.

For this version I took approximately 1cm out of the upper front piece at the fold line, and after basting and trying it on I also took 1cm off the long edge. I also added a small FBA to the lower front piece, and these two adjustments combined gave me a much better fit. For the neckline I scooped it out from the get-go and did my own thing with the neck binding.

What I did not do, in a very surprising move for me, was crop it. I fully assumed I was going to. But I pinned it up to try it on and get the right length and didn't like it at all. The proportion looked really strange. So I hemmed it as it was. I do not wear longer tops under any non-gym circumstances (I have one that I really like but it doesn't go with much), so this is a bit of an experiment to see if it will actually get worn. If not, I'll bring it back to the machine and rethink.

I'm also wearing some of the Jalie Clara leggings from my winter plan here. I made two pairs of full-length leggings and two pairs of shorts, which was enough work that I really wanted to give them their own post, but I just cannot write anything worth reading about several pairs of black leggings from a pattern I've already reviewed. So they're here, I've finished them, I've worn them to weightlifting classes and they've done me very well. The fabric is Italian matt lycra from Fabworks, which was recommended to me by a commenter, and it's really great. Nice black, exactly the right amount of stretch, and good recovery. Win!

I would absolutely make this top again. It's not something I'd want to have twelve of, but I do like to have this kind of thing available to me when I want to look like I've made slightly more effort to get dressed than I actually have. It'll be really good for spring and autumn, I think.

Up next: depending on what I get photographed, it'll either be the Gemma sweatshirts, Patrick's fancy shirt, or my poppy print batwing dress test. I've been struggling to take photos lately because body image stuff, but I'm hoping to get round that by using the camera more in general. There's almost certainly a self-quarantine photography challenge that already exists, and I'm going to try and do that in the hopes of forcing myself to be a bit more creative. I promise not to get too abstract with my project photos!


McCalls 8003 top

Fabric: Grey viscose jersey from Rolls and Rems // Stripy sweater knit from Like Sew Amazing
Cost: £7.50 // £15
Pattern details: Jersey top or bodysuit with keyhole detail, length and neckline options
Size: 14 at shoulders, grading to 20 at hips
Alterations: (for second version) 1/2 inch FBA, 1/2 inch taken out of upper front piece, neckline scooped, neckband redrafted
Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Yes with caveat to baste fit first

spring sewing: the wrap skirt wardrobe malfunction test

The idea of making a wrap skirt has been rattling around in the back of my head for a while. In the summer I wear maxi length almost exclusively and you all know I love a wrap anything, so it seemed like a no-brainer, especially when I realised I was sitting on four pieces of fabric that all wanted to be wrap skirts. But I kept putting it off, because I wanted to find an actually interesting pattern. I know I could cut some rectangles, add some ties to the end and be done, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted something with a bit of actual design to it, and nobody seemed to be making those. 

This is McCalls 7606, and I'm not sure it's the one. 

This pattern is for an off-the-shoulder or cold-shoulder bodysuit (which I may make if I'm bored one day) and this shaped wrap skirt, with or without hem ruffles. I wasn't sure this was what I wanted but it was literally the only one I could find with any interest to it whatsoever. Everything else looked like it came from a WikiHow article using only two measurements and a ruler, which I'm not saying is a bad look but I am saying I wouldn't pay eight quid for. 

The fabric is a viscose from Fabric Land, a gift from my mother. I love the colours (I think I actually look better in red and purple but I'd much rather wear peacock shades) but I didn't spend enough time with the fabric before I decided it had to be a wrap skirt. When I came to cut it out, I realised that a) the print went vertically and not horizontally as I'd originally thought and b) it was super narrow so I couldn't just cut the whole thing on the cross-grain. As a result it doesn't look quite like I'd envisioned it and it definitely suffers from that. I wanted a fairly sleek skirt but I'm now wondering if I should have added the ruffles anyway just to make it a bit more interesting. 

The most important thing, obviously, was the obligatory Wardrobe Malfunction Test. So I broke out my favourite pair of chub rub shorts, which I got in Sainsbury's about ten years ago and have never been able to replace. They're falling apart now, so I really need to start working on making some myself, but they won't be as perfect as these ones GAAAAHHH. Anyway, I put them on and went for the briefest walk I could possibly plan, bearing in mind what happened last time I did one of these tests. 

And... yes, malfunctions occurred. I think it's a combination of how light and easily disturbed this fabric is, the small amount of overlap at the waist and the curve at the front. Any two out of the three and it might have been alright, but as it was things definitely got precarious every time there was a slight breeze. If I were going to remake this skirt I'd definitely go up a few sizes to get more overlap at the front; due to the way the curve is cut I wouldn't even lose that much leg, I don't think. 

(This top is the black Nettie bodysuit I'd originally intended to make for my winter plans. It is one of the best and most useful things I have ever made and I have worn it to goddamn death this last two months. Not having to worry about tops riding up makes getting dressed so much easier and it's enabled me to get wear out of clothes that had just been sitting sadly in my wardrobe for months. I love it. I'm seriously considering buying more fabric and making two more identical ones so that wearing it as often as I do is a bit less gross.)

I will probably not be wearing this skirt, which is a shame. For an easy summer skirt I'm not that bothered about it not looking quite how I'd imagined (the colours carry it sufficently, I think), but the potential for malfunction is too great. I'd just never be able to relax. Maybe if we end up going on a beach or beach-adjacent holiday this year I'll take it with me as a swimsuit cover-up, and it'll probably be useful around the house if we get another super-hot summer. What I definitely will not be doing is making the three further versions I'd intended on if this one worked. I have three fabrics currently in my stash that have decided they want to be wrap skirts, and I don't know what I'm going to do with them now. Someone must have an interesting take on a wrap skirt, surely?

Up next: probably a Walthamstow fabric post. I've had a run of failures lately and it's been super demotivating (and unhelpfully timed). I will eventually get round to taking photos and posting about them, but I'm not in that place yet. Fabric talk and crowd sourcing ideas it is!

autumn sewing: M7516 robe

It's mid-November, the worst possible time of the year except for all of January, so what we need now is comfort clothing!

I love my Asaka kimono, but it's not ideal for really cold evenings, so I've been continuing to wear Patrick's ancient fleece one, despite three failed attempts before, during and after making his fancy new robe to make a replacement for myself. My criteria were simple: I wanted a pattern designed to make a stretchy, cosy garment, and also I never wanted to sew a shawl collar ever again in my life. M7516 came up in my searches and I decided it was the one. Since it came with a hood, I could have the shawl collar effect without having to... do all that stuff I never got the hang of. Yay!

All in all, the pattern turned out not to be ideal and I had to make several alterations to it. It came with neither pockets nor belt loops (WHY do so many patterns of this type not come with belt loops?? I WILL LOSE THE BELT WITHIN MINUTES, GUYS), and I also changed the length quite significantly. The fabric requirements specify 2.5m of the main fabric, and I bought 3m with the intention of also getting patch pockets, the belt, and as much extra length as possible out of it. Which I did. My robe is approximately 11 inches longer than the pattern and I think it's about right for what I pictured. I also added a bit of length to the sleeves. OK, I added waaaay too much length to the sleeves, ended up with some kind of weird Slenderman thing, and cut them back again. This is still definitely longer than the pattern but I'm not sure by how much. I really hate too-short sleeves in dressing gowns.

My main fabric is a French terry I bought from Girl Charlee. I've only bought from them once before and my experience was mixed - both fabrics looked and felt lovely, but the cotton spandex blend washed very poorly and didn't have great recovery. The sweater knit, though, is still going strong, so I thought I'd take a punt on a third substrate. This one is lighter weight than I expected but very soft and snuggly, and I don't have any complaints about its quality so far. I'm tempted to order a few swatches to try and get a better overall read on what I can expect from them in general.

The black floral I used for the lining isn't the perfectly contrasting jersey I might have chosen, but I had this in my stash and figured that barely any of it would show so why not. The pattern instructs you to cut the belt out of the contrast fabric as well, but I don't like the way that looks and never intended to do it. I think I assumed that there would be some kind of facing along the dressing gown's opening to be made in the contrast fabric, and I thought maybe I would be able to squeeze it out of my main fabric. However, there is not a facing. You just cut the entire front piece again. The dressing gown is therefore two-thirds lined, which I find... weird. I suppose it does make it a bit warmer.

Construction was pretty simple, and if we discount the time I took to unpick a seam I'd sewn between two edges that weren't meant to go together, it only took me about three hours. I put the belt loops in at the smallest point of the waist and added the pockets about an inch below that (one of them is a bit wonky, but it's not repair day yet so correcting it is going to have to wait). Pocket-wise I just cut two squares from the largest scrap I had left over after cutting everything else, so I'm not actually sure how big they are. Big enough for my phone and a bunch of tissues, which is all they'll ever need to hold anyway.

I also made another So Zo cami from the same material, which I'm wearing here because it matches and I think it's cute. I am also wearing an old pair of capri-length exercise leggings, which are much less cute. I don't have masses of this floral fabric left, but I am considering using it to make a pair of shorts. I've never had a desire for lounge shorts before, but all my full-length pyjama bottoms look weird under this dressing gown (probably in part because the patterns and colours don't go at all) and a matching black shorts-and-cami set would probably be a nice (and space-economical) idea for weekends away.

For what I wanted - a cosy dressing gown that's much more attractive and presentable than the one I've been using for the last few years - this does the job very nicely. The slightly incongruous lining fabric bothers me less the more I wear it, it's SUPER comfortable, and the longer length makes it a bit more sophisticated than it would otherwise be. I'm not going to put it on to greet guests or anything, but I wouldn't be embarrassed to answer the door in it. I'm calling that a win.

Up next: trousers! I'm genuinely concerned I'm going to wear thigh-holes in my red ones if I don't introduce a bit of variety 

(I don't generally wear giant orange chandelier earrings with my dressing gown, they're just the earrings I put on for the day, but I have to say I don't hate it. For some reason the idea of wearing a tiny bit of a colour that doesn't go at all with the rest of the outfit appeals to me tremendously. Great, now I'm going to need loungewear earrings.)