garment sewing | Needle and Foot

The beast has been tamed. The pile of oversized yellow fluff has been transformed into a cozy bathrobe at last. I received so much encouragement after that last post that I decided to dive back in and take control of that yellow monster.

It was easy!

First I took a bit of time with the seam ripper and picked out the hem on both sleeves. Turning it inside out, I laid it on the floor and carefully smoothed it out. I pinned two inches or so along the inside of the length of the side seams and the seam of the sleeve. Then I just cut – cut off the two inches along each side.

The nice thing about this robe is the fluff. Conversely, the worst thing about this robe is the fluff! Once everything was stitched back together I tried it on. Amazing how this helped! ( If only I would have thought to do this the first time around!) It fit much better but was still too puffy. Topstitching around the entire collar and all the way down the front of the robe, on both sides, really helped to tame it. Because of the fluff, it was hard to sew accurate straight seams. When I was sewing on the “wrong” side of the fabric, there was no issue. However sewing on top of the fabric was really tough. My presser foot would get lost in all that fluff! There was a lot of drag on the fabric and my top thread shredded over and over. (I tried my walking foot but that seemed to make it even worse.)

Like I was saying before, the fluff was also a positive attribute in that it didn’t truly matter how straight my seams were. The depth of the fabric made it difficult to see the actual seam, you only see the impression the seam leaves.

Here is my first attempt at modeling the robe (in my sweats and socks!)

Photo credits to my kind husband for these modeling shots. I may send them into a bathrobe modeling agency. I feel a new career beginning.

Looking at these amazing photos, I noticed that the pattern on the fabric almost matches where I put the patch pockets on. I cannot take credit for this – it certainly was not planned! I found that hand stitching was much faster than top stitching so I sewed the hem by hand while watching some TV last night.

At this point my only remaining concern is that this is one very warm robe. Maybe too much so for this post menopausal model.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Also with Sew Bittersweet Designs, once the December ALYOF link up is posted. Because, with 13 days to spare, I just completed my December goal! Woot woot!

Both links are found at the top of the page under Link Ups.

I hope all of you that celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful holiday. We had a small group for dinner and it was a very nice day. The Wednesday prior was a snow day for the local schools so Julia’s weekend was even longer than expected. We didn’t get as much snow as was forecast but what a treat it was.

Ray, Julia, and I went up to Downieville for the rest of the long weekend. Julia brought a friend up too. On that Saturday we got a text from my middle son, Kyle. Big news! He proposed to his girfriend of five years and she accepted. They are perfect for each other and we couldn’t be happier to have Marisa join our family. The gorgeous picture at the top of the page was taken by Ian (my youngest son) on a recent vacation he had with Kyle and Marisa. In this picture they were at Niagra Falls.

With all that was going on, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to sew. Also, it was a physical impossibility. When Ian is home, he uses the sewing room as his bedroom and this happens:

To his credit, he did ask me on multiple occasions if I wanted him to clear a path to the sewing machine. There wasn’t time for it anyway so it was not a big deal.

Last night when we got home from Downieville I decided to cut into a piece of fabric I bought last week. I was at Jo-Ann Fabric and had one of their always-welcome “20% off entire purchase” coupons. Those make me a little crazy. I bought some practical items that I needed for my Etsy shop and then decided I wanted to make a new bathrobe. Prior to my current quilting obssession, I used to sew clothing fairly often. A long while back, I wrote a post about this. Like quilting, garment sewing is a fairly expensive hobby. More often than not, I can buy the ready-made garment for less than I can sew it. But again like quilting, it is more fun to make it. I found this wonderful, soft buttery yellow fabric. With my coveted coupon and the fact that it was already on sale, the expense for the fabric went from $55 to $33. Not too shabby.

It is a very pale yellow and so snuggly. The texture is perfect and there isn’t a nap to worry about when cutting the pieces

I knew I would be able to find a pattern to use in my pile of old patterns. This one was missing the pieces to the PJ pants but still had all of the pieces to the robe. It is date stamped 1989 so yep, I have had it around for a while!

Isn’t that couple just dreamy in their matching robes? Too bad I didn’t think to buy enough of the yellow fabric to make Ray a matching robe…… 😉 I got the pieces laid out and cut last night so I am ready to go. (Well, maybe I should vacuum first. I cut the pieces in my dining room because I was working with a four yard length of fabric. There is yellow fuzz floating around throughout the house now.) This bathrobe consists of a few long seams and putting two pockets on the front so it will come together quickly. I’m looking forward to working on it. Sewing from a pattern is something that I have done for so long that I don’t really have to think about it. It is mindless sewing – as compared to quilting where I have to watch myself all along the way. In fact, this will come together fast enough that I will call it my December goal for ALYOF. I didn’t set a goal at all in November and didn’t meet my goal for October so it is time to get back on track!