FO: Luxury lounging, Seamwork Almada robe

I'm sorry for the photos. Let's get that out of the way. I'm trying! photography is a continuing mystery. 

Phew! Now let's talk about this lovely robe, for, as Nicole called it, "my opium life". It's truly a LOUNGE LIFE robe, and that's what I wanted. Marie Kondo tells us not to keep leftover clothes for loungewear, and in my recent mega purge, my bedroom is getting a slow and clean makeover. I need something to wear for it all, right?

Enter Almada. I stalked a lot of double gauze, but couldn't commit, and made it out of [single?] gauze in olive and chartreuse/neon/lime (color people, please educate me). It's like wearing a dry feather, and I love it. It does hang open like shown above, so at some point I'll have to sew in the snap the pattern suggests.

Until then, let's look at the GUTS!

Shown above (on the left) is where the waist tie is stitched to the front. I strengthened it with some fusible interfacting and then added some leftover bias tape over top, in an attempt to camouflage the white white interfacing. Eh. I do think it's worth reinforcing this stitching so the tie doesn't pull the robe fabric apart, but this way isn't the most lovely solution.

When I first tried it on I found that the sleeve innards TOTALLY show when the robe is on. A raw seam (seriously! it was supposed to be just raw. Boo.) was not what I was going for in my #upgrade. So I went nuts.

Madam Clean Seams

I started with bias tape - i had made 300 yards for the front and neck binding, and I started by binding the sleeve/cuff seam with it. Then it was floppy...so I added a fancy decorative stitch. Those things are fun.


I went around the front seam with that same stitch pattern and I just think it's the neatest. Geometic, not frilly, but intricate and fancy-feeling.

Next time I would use two different fabrics, one for the cuffs and tie and one for the body, like I did here. I like how it makes it a little more special. I would make the ties about half as long though, or not interface them - as you can see above and below, the interfaced tie really only needs half a knot to stay in place. Then there are these crazy long rectangles hanging about...but there are NEON GREEN so it's all good.

and I LOVE the way the gauze hangs and moves. Check! Have you made one yet? It's like $3 dude. get at it!