The weather can’t seem to make it its mind up at the moment, hovering between hot and cold. It seems that no matter what I wear, it’s always wrong. This also extends to being at home. Cold weather beckons my warm fleece dressing gown. I’m constantly taking it off because it’s too hot and then putting it back on again a few moments later because it’s too cold. I wished I had something lighter for temperature fluctuations like these and that’s when and idea popped into my head; I should just make myself a lighter dressing gown.
Surely buying one would suffice? But then I remembered that, a while back, I bought this beautiful Liberty print silk fabric. The thought of luxurious silk brushing against my skin was just too tempting to ignore.
Pattern wise, I decided to use a Kimono as a template. However, I decided to ditch drawing a pattern (shock horror!) and instead used my measuring tape as a guide, happily ripping the silk to size rather than cutting. I decided to do this because cutting a silky fabric results in an uneven line, whereas ripping it (carefully) gives straight lines that are easier to sew.
So like the pieces of puzzle, I began to sew all the ripped pieces together to create this dressing gown. Wastage wise, I was quite surprised that with a 1.5 m x 1.5 m silk fabric, I only ended up with a piece that fitted into the palm of my hand. It was the same with the silk lining. This was because the pattern was essentially just rectangles and squares.
The finished dressing gown feels amazing and it’s so comfortable to wear. It’s a cliche saying this but it made me feel like a million dollars (although I did save a lot of money by making one instead of forking out £150 for a normal silk dressing gown).
The only problem with a silk dressing gown is I daren’t go near the kitchen in it. Shall I hire a butler to do all the housework instead?
Stephen Yong 