Helen's closet

2 more Suki Robes

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I have plenty of clothes, so how can I justify making more?

Here, my friends came to the rescue (actually they probably have more clothes than me but it’s their guilt now not mine).

On our weekly zoom chat I was moaning about having lots of fabric and wanting to sew but not needing anything. My friends said ‘you could make something for us’

I am generally not keen on making things for other people. Too many of us have got used to the idea that clothes are not valued, and are disposable. I have seen this in practice when sorting through charity shop donations. I choose my gift makes carefully.

In this instance the gifts were to be Helen’s closet Suki robe’s. This pattern works best in light weight fabrics to be used as a summer dressing gown. It’s good to make as a gift because there are not too many fitting issues – loose fit, wrap front.

I gave my friends some 100% cotton fabric options to choose from then ordered accordingly.

I made this one from fabric bought on ebay for £9 per metre, 2.5 metres purchased. My friend identifies with Sicily so I chose the lemon fabric. There is huge error which is the lemons hang upwards but I was focussing on the leaves which I thought lookd better pointing upwards.

I made this one from Japanese fabric purchased online for £18 per metre, 3 metres purchased.

This is probably the best quality fabric I have ever sewed. It just oozed quality. The birds and colours are amazing, I think they are storks. Despite this being a size small, there was not much fabric left over from the 3m I bought. I imagined myself pattern matching but that was beyond my skill level and I had to content myself with all the birds flying in the same direction.

I tried both on, and the lemons one, being my size, was a lovely fit, but disconcertingly the stork print looked all wrong because it would not close properly and even the neck was too small. I will just have to hope that Helen knows what she is doing and this will look wonderful on my small sized friend.

Having sewed 2 Suki robes in 4 days I am now familiar with the pattern and have some observations.

  1. French seam the shoulder seams
  2. Don’t bother with the belt loops
  3. The front overlap is quite small, don’t skimp on sizing in this area.
  4. Its a great pattern

I love sewing, its rewarding and challenging.

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