Draped in Gray

Seriously, this is the last thing I'm sewing in 2011. I had been wanting to make this 1948 reproduction pattern robe since I saw Anna's version of it on Pleasant View Schoolhouse. I loved the color she chose, especially. When it came to picking out fabric for my own project in 2010, there weren't a lot of options in my neck of the woods. Velvet was too expensive and was so heavy, so that was out. Plus Jo-Ann's only carries it in black, Christmasy red, or hunter green. No thanks.

So I went to the velour offerings. I found a beautiful green with a hint of blue. Two bolts, neither of which had enough fabric for the whole project and which had slightly different tones so they couldn't be combined. Drat. The other two colors I liked were a nice red and dove gray. I almost went with red, but then I didn't want it to seem too Christmasy. And anyway, I like gray and I think it looks good on me.

I bought the bolt, which was just enough for the nearly 5 yards of fabric required. And then it sat around for about a year. And in the spirit of starting to use up my stash I started with the piece that was taking up the most room.

Now, velour has a very definite nap and I was very careful to keep all the pieces going in the right direction. I cut out the pieces for the top first, then had to reposition the remaining fabric to cut out the pieces for the skirt and the belt. I opened up the large piece of fabric and folded it lengthwise so there was selvage at the top and the bottom. I started pinning skirt pieces then realized with sudden and utter clarity that if I did it that way I would end up with half the skirt pieces with the nap going down and half with the nap going up! Congratulating myself for catching this mistake in time, I turned the top piece of fabric so that all the nap was going in one direction.

Disaster averted.

Then I proceeded to pin and cut. And when I was cutting the last six or seven inches of the very last piece I realized with a gasp that I had still PINNED THE PIECES THE WRONG WAY!!!  ARGH!!!

I was not about to scrap this project and waste that much fabric, so I carried on, reasoning that most of the time if I was lounging about in this robe the nap would be pushed this way and that and it wouldn't be too noticeable. And at least each half looked okay as a unit. And the belt separated them. At worst, it would look like the skirt was slightly darker than the top.

Once everything was together, it looked fine. And fine is good enough. After all, I'm not going to wear a robe anywhere but my own house, and I highly doubt my husband or son would ever have noticed this little issue.

Now, I really had hoped that we would have snow at this point, both for Christmas and for photographing this robe. I had big plans to be standing in deep snow, the robe draped lavishly on the ground, a perfect black and white portrait. You know, like a fashion shoot vibe. But all we have is a dusting at the moment. So these shots will have to do. I thought that if I couldn't do a completely impractical shoot, I could show you what someone would really be doing in a robe. And the great thing about this one is that the hooks beneath the belt keep you from having to constantly re-wrap and re-tie the thing. Perfect for morning chores.

During the entire time I was changing the sheets this morning, I never had to make one adjustment to my robe. Score.