Simple Sew Kimono Dress

This month’s Simple Sew make is the Simple Sew Kimono Dress - a wrap style dress with a large tie at the waist, except that mine is not going to be a dress. When we were asked for fabric and pattern choices for this make we were in the midst of an extremely hot summer and I had been sweltering in my winter dressing gown in the mornings, so I decided that I would like a summer ‘robe’.

 

The fabric is a beautiful Lady McElroy cotton lawn very generously supplied by Doughty's Online. It sewed beautifully,  ironed really well and feels lovely on.

I cut a size 12, but kept the length of the size 20 - I like my dressing gown/robes to be quite long. This style has grown on sleeves which means that sleeve and the body are all one piece. I quite wanted longer sleeves but the front pieces are quite big due to the wrap and the sleeve, so a longer sleeve would have meant that the piece wouldn’t fit on the fabric.

I also wanted pockets so having sewn the shoulder seams together,  I pinned the side seams, tried it on and worked out where I wanted to add the in seam pockets.  My winter dressing gown had large patch pockets, but I felt that wasn’t the look I wanted for this. I used the pocket piece from the Lapwing trousers and placed it roughly where I wanted my hand to rest.

 

Having put in the pockets and sewn up the side seams the robe was looking pretty good. The instructions have you finish the edge of the front, then turn and stitch down.  I thought this would not give the finish that I wanted, particularly around the neckline  - and this is where this project started to take its time -  I decided to make some bias tape to finish the edge.  I have recently taken out of use a duvet set that was the exact pinky lilac colour of the flamingos. I used a tutorial by Colette for continuous bias binding. This technique is a bit fiddly but I find it much easier than joining lots of strips of fabric. I didn’t think to take pictures of what I did so have included the link.  Quite a small square of fabric makes a surprisingly long piece of bias tape! I machine stitched the bias on to the edge, then folded it over and hand stitched  all the way around the front. Having done that, I then hand stitched the sleeve hems and the hem of the garment.

I used some the bias tape to make a rouleau and used it to make a couple of ties for inside the robe to help keep it closed.

I added belt loops to stop the belt from falling off and I also made a hanging loop so that it can hang on the bathroom door

I am very pleased with it and a little bit disappointed that the weather has become much cooler, so I won’t be wearing this properly until next summer. It is a very easy sew and would be quite quick if you didn’t add bias tape and hand stitching to the mix!

Simple Sew Classic Sweatshirt

This months make is the Classic Sweatshirt

I have made a sweatshirt style top a couple of times before, but have not been super happy with the fit of the neck, so when Gabby asked if anyone would like to use this pattern I was happy to say yes!

I looked at the finished garment measurements and decided to cut a size 8 for the shorter view B. This month my fabric came from Doughty's Online and I chose a textured floral print medium weight knit in a combination of pink, mustard, black & turquoise. The colour way I chose doesn't seem to available now but there is a blue version. I deliberately didn't choose the blue one as I am trying to get a bit more colour into my wardrobe.

I received the pattern just before Easter weekend and the fabric just after Easter, so I thought I had plenty of time to get this done. Unfortunately, I had done something to my back and have been pretty immobile until this last week, so have been doing 'last minute' sewing which I prefer not to do!

Having washed the fabric, and finally got around to laying out the pattern pieces I found that unusually, the stretch went down the length of the fabric rather than across the width. I thought about what to do for a little while and then decided to completely ignore the lay plan in the pattern instructions and cut the pieces with the stretch going across them (selvages at the top and bottom of of my layout rather than down the sides).

Fortunately for my 'last minute sewing' this sweatshirt is a pretty simple sew - see what I did there?  The raglan sleeves make putting this together very easy - all the notches matched  and I very quickly had something that looked like a top.

The pattern recommends using ribbing for the neckband, sleeve cuffs and hem band.  I didn't think that I wanted the look of contrasting colour for those, so decided to use self fabric.

I haven't used ribbing before, but I am guessing that it is pretty stretchy. I really struggled to get the neckband on using the method in the instructions and I suspect that the fabric just isn't quite stretchy enough.

I wangled it on in the end, completed the sleeve cuffs and hem band, then tried it on - disaster - I really didn't like it.  It was too long in the body, the sleeve were too long and the cuffs were too tight despite trying them on before attaching them. Rather than try to fix it then and there, I went to bed and had a proper look at it in the morning.

I ended up cutting about 10cm off the length of the body and reattached the hem band. I cut the cuffs off the sleeves, shortened the sleeves by about 4cm, cut new cuffs 2 sizes larger (my unorthodox cutting had left me with quite a big remnant) and attached the new cuffs.

This fixed all my  'problems' and hey presto I have a new top that I really like!