Lahja than life
It occurs to me that I haven't yet talked about the process I go through when I'm choosing a pattern; and it's probably worth doing that, because that process is going to be a bit different for everyone. And, as it happens, I chose this one only yesterday morning (not having expected to be doing so), so the thought process is very fresh in my mind.
For some time, I've had two apparently unrelated thoughts going on in the back of my mind. One was "I could really do with a dressing gown." I did have a very nice one from Lands' End; it was red fleece and wonderfully warm, but, of course, 2016 happened to it. And, the thing is, I do very occasionally need to go to the loo in the middle of the night (not nearly as often as you'd expect for someone my age, which is a mercy - it's one of the very few plus sides of Sibyl; she's inclined to hog all the water), and when that happens in the middle of winter and I'm wearing a skimpy nightie, it's not a barrel of fun. Especially since I can't get to the bathroom very fast because I dump all my clothes over my Zimmer frame at night, so I have to put them all on the bed before I can use the frame to get to the bathroom, and sometimes it's round about 12 degrees and... well, yes, I need a dressing gown. And the other thought was "one of these days I really need to buy half a metre or so of bamboo towelling and make some bits and bobs." By which I mean things like little round pads for applying cleansers and what have you, and similar personal care stuff so I don't have to use disposables. I'm very much of the opinion that if you can wash it and use it again, that beats every other alternative, even recycling.
And then Minerva, which is where I generally get my fabric and haberdashery and so on, e-mailed and said "we've got 40% off end-of-line towelling"; at which point the two previously unrelated thoughts coalesced into one and I went straight over to their site to see if they had any in bamboo. Why, yes. Yes, they did. Even better, they had sale bamboo towelling fabric in red. That could really not have been any better, so the next thing I needed to do was to look for a nice dressing gown pattern.
Minerva has filters, and they mostly work; there are a few weird exceptions (I filtered down for a suitable dressing gown pattern, and got 25 possibilities plus an apron), but generally they're pretty helpful. That does, at any rate, speed things up a good deal. However, one thing they don't do is subcategorise nightwear very heavily; I've had this trouble before trying to find a pattern for a nightie (you have to look under "pyjamas", it turns out). So if you want a dressing gown, you have to search for "robe", and that will give you anything from the kind of warm substantial affair I'm looking for to a diaphanous negligée designed to be made from chiffon and lace and similar fabrics.
That meant that the first thing I did was to reject anything that wouldn't work in terry towelling. That turned out to mean not just the obvious floaty creations, but, for instance, one pattern that in every other respect ticked all the boxes, except that the belt was carried not through loops but through a casing the width of the back section. That'll work beautifully in a charmeuse satin, but towelling? Too much bulk and too much friction. Reject. (If I do ever feel the need for a lighter robe, I will revisit that pattern.)
All the remaining patterns were quite similar, so now came the fine tuning. What about the length? If it didn't come in a longer length, I could easily afford to reject it, because there were enough that did. (12 degrees Celsius, remember? Why freeze my knees if I don't have to? Of course, it's easy enough to lengthen a pattern, but, again, why do that if I don't have to? Apart from anything else, if the pattern does already come in a longer length, then you know exactly how much fabric you're going to need for it and you don't have to guess.)
Then it was a question of going through individually and looking at the sizing. I'm not going to do a lot of fancy fitting on a dressing gown; belting it in at the waist does that. I just need it to fit my bust. So if it didn't, it was out. Also, if it was in inches only, it was out. Yes, I always have my calculator handy, but no, I don't want to have to keep getting it out just so I can get a feel for what I'm doing. You want to sell me a pattern, I don't care if you put inches on it, but if you don't also put centimetres I will move on.
There was a really nice one from Style Arc. I haven't tried any of their patterns before but I've heard very well of them. Everything looked really good, there wasn't going to be a problem about fitting... and then I realised that they do the same thing as the I AM pattern company. They print all their pieces overlapping and you have to trace them. I am never doing that again, because if you can't stand up for long periods at a time it becomes a major hassle; so I regret to say that I shall never be trying Style Arc, at least unless they decide to change their policy on that one.
I was not consciously avoiding the big brands, but, as usual, I noticed that in fact I was gravitating to the independents, indeed even more than I normally do; and I have a pretty good idea why. I keep mentioning this 29-piece calico-backed jigsaw of a sewing project I'm on with at the moment (it would be going faster than it is, but I'm also trying to get a jacket knitted in a finite time, plus there are the baby hats, plus I ended up putting together a 45-page document for my new counsellor so that she had some idea what I'm trying to get healed from, plus... you get the picture); well, the 29-piece thing, which I'm very much looking forward to finishing and posting about, is a Simplicity. And the instructions are, honestly, not great. I find myself thinking, "you know, I learnt to sew on big-brand patterns, I've been using them for the last 45 years or more, and so really it should not make any difference; I know what I'm doing, so I shouldn't need to go for independent patterns just because they have clearer instructions on the whole."
Except that I do. I got something wrong on the 29-piece project that I am going to have to take out and re-sew, because both the instructions and the picture were totally unhelpful at that specific point. I mean, yes, usually if the instructions are unclear or ambiguous I can use my experience to work it out; but for one thing I can't always do that, because there are times when it doesn't matter how much experience you have, the instructions are just so badly written that you can't make sense of them, and for another thing... look, if I want to do a puzzle, then that is what Killer Sudoku Online is for. (I do visit it every day, in fact.) But if I want to sew something, I don't want to have to solve a puzzle to work out how to put it together. I just want to be told clearly and unambiguously. You may detect here a note of mild irritation with Simplicity right now!
So... the Burda one was just as nice as this one (and a lot cheaper), and it'd probably have fitted because Burda patterns nearly always do fit me (and, if they don't, it is only ever just the bust they don't fit, and I'm used to having to alter for that). But it didn't get a look in, nonetheless. I saw this one and thought "right, we're sorted."
It's all ordered, so now it's just a question of where to fit it in on the priority list. I have about another half a dozen Southbanks to make (I am living in those - how did I ever do winter without them?), and the scooter poncho (currently cut out, but it's had to go on interrupt for various reasons), and the knitting, and... and... so many crafts, so little time. Don't even talk to me about Christmas just yet (though I'm happy to say I have given my favourite two-year-old's parents the jumper I knitted him for Christmas, as they quite often go away in the latter half of December).
And then I'm going to need to work out where to hang it. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!
