After I finished sewing my robe, I had enough fabric leftover to make myself a Scout Tee! (Or, I carefully conserved fabric as I cut the robe so that I could eke out something of substance.) I wear this all the time, I love it! I even wore it on a short business trip a week after I made it, before I’d even taken photos.
Not much more to say about it, as I’m slowly getting better at making them. I cut a lot of bias binding in a white cotton lawn so that I now have it as a go-to for future projects. It’d be so nice to make coordinating or otherwise special bindings, but I find making bias tape to be so tedious, and feels like such a waste of fabric, that I feel satisfied with a small stash of white. Since it isn’t visible anyway, who cares?
As always, I can say I learned a lot in the making of this shirt, the Biscayne Blouse from Hey June. My biggest lesson was not to size something down willy-nilly because you think it’s coming out too big!
For this, I cut a generous size on purpose. But then it seemed impossibly wide so I just winged shaving fabric off the sides. I took off too much, so it’s more snug at the bust than I wanted, and the shoulders are wider than I’d want. (Proving I should’ve just cut a smaller size to get narrower shoulders.) Oh well!
However, I feel pretty damn good about the button placket—that came together very easily and cleanly. I will definitely make this again in a different, less see-through fabric, and cut at a size that will better fit in the shoulders! The pattern was very easy to follow and I executed the sewing in an evening, if memory serves. I wore this pretty often over the summer. It got its debut exploring the coastline in San Diego!
To make your house warmed, you need pleasantly plump pillows, don’t you think?
I’ve always loved this quilt block, just an arrangement of HSTs. (I actually couldn’t find a name for this block—anyone know?) It’s funny how different it looks in a pillow, though, once the pillow is stuffed—more round, less sharp. I quite like the effect. The pillows are fraternal twins in more than one way: I split each HST up so that there is one in each pillow, just arranged differently (except for that center orange! oops!), and I used the same fabric in different colorways to back them.
I love the assortment of colors—on the pillows and on my friend’s couch. Many of those fabrics are beloved, as I’ve used them in many projects over time. They’re stuffed and seamed shut (rather than pocket pillowcases), using stuffing from small Ikea pillows that were about the same size. They’re modest, at just about 12″ square. My friend says that a friend of hers was hugging a pillow while they talked over some rough times, and she said the pillow had good energy. I couldn’t ask for a better compliment.
I bought this fabric when I was in India a few years ago. That fabric shopping trip was overwhelming, and I have no idea what I was thinking when I chose most of the fabrics. I got home and discovered that I did not like most of them!
This fabric, though, I still liked. It was just different enough to not be like everything else I own, but still within my favorite colors. It was a drapey, sort of twill weave but turned out it was VERY loosely woven and in fact basically unraveled the second I cut it into the pieces. I quickly ran each edge through the serger but apparently that was only somewhat successful because after a day of wearing it, there is a hole in the armpit. I sewed that shut and after another wearing and a trip through the wash, there’s the beginning of a hole at one shoulder seam. Those seams were sewn with proper seam allowance; I think the fabric is just too fragile!
Sadly I think this one will never be worn again. But I proudly wore it for one fine spring day on a drive with a friend from LA to San Diego! It’s shown here under the pier at Newport Beach and on the rocks around Laguna beach.
When I graduated from high school 20-plus years ago, I was given a terrycloth robe. It came greatly in handy in college, when I lived in the dorm and would travel back and forth down the hall to the bathroom. But once I started living on my own, I stopped using it—I went from bathroom to dressed, with no stop in between. But the past few years, I’ve taken to showering upon getting home from the day in the summer. Sweaty, salty, and covered in a layer of whatever hangs in the air in the subway, the end-of-day shower is one of my favorite parts of summer. And sometimes after one of them, I just don’t want to put clothing on right away. I kept wanting a robe.
Enter Purl Soho’s free pattern, Women’s Robe. (Well, free if you sign up for their newsletter.) I went to Mood, which has a bunch of Liberty cotton lawn, and agonized over the choices. In general I’m not hugely into the tiny florals of Liberty, but I wanted a super special robe, and this gray/white/blue one was the one. (There are tiny tiny bits of blue.)
The pattern is very very basic—rectangles sewn together, essentially. It is not even a PDF pattern; it comes with no pattern pieces, instead telling you to cut rectangles of certain dimensions. That put a big delay in my process, because I knew the best way to ensure I had everything square was to make the pattern pieces. (I’m so glad I did not pay for this pattern. I’d be incredibly disappointed in how little I got for the money.) I finally sat down one day and did the math to make it work with 8½ x 11 paper. When I cut the fabric out I was highly conservative with the fabric and had enough leftover to make a shirt! And I even did the long length—it comes to mid-shin.
Of course, even though it’s fall I’ve been loving using the robe. After a shower I don it, put my hair up in my towel, and feel free to swan about for a bit before I eventually put some clothes on.
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