The Useful Robe is under way.

The Useful Robe, named to distinguish it from the Robe of Many Colors with all the embroidery,  which is an an artwork, is coming to pass.

The rest of the fabric is draped down the side of the bed. I have made many clothes using my bed as the work top, because it's usually the biggest flat area available without crawling around on the floor. There's more fabric than you see.

I used the simple t shaped style I made the jersey top from, which is just about the way medieval robes were made, this is me history-bounding.

Selvedge to selvedge is about my wingspan, so this worked as hoped. Two long seams and finishing at neck, sleeves and hem is all it needs. 

I drew out the shape around the t top with one of those disappearing pens, whatever they're called. Then cut. No need to baste and pin.

I'll probably make a t shaped neck opening, since this is woven, nonstretch, and leave slits at the hem, same reason.. 

Looks quite ecclesiastical! The sleeves will be narrower when they're stitched. No sewing at all has happened yet.

I have a couple of thoughts about whether to split the front and make a separate neck-to-hem section for closing, or make it a popover style, no front opening.  I used to have a gown like that and really liked it.

There's plenty of extra fabric for pockets, and a belt if I want to make one. Maybe even a hood.

Now for seaming sleeves and sides, then creating a facing for the neck. At the end I'll decide length, don't need to know that yet.

I love this sort of totally simple approach to making clothes. Sonya Phillips explains why commercial patterns have many parts. It's not about fit or styling. It's about the production line. 

The kind of robe I'm making needs one person, in fact it works better with one pair of hands. But you can't get up production line speed this way.

After the invention of the sewing machine and its adoption industrially, speed required one person do one small section repeatedly, and the work of many would be assembled, production style, and finished the same way. People specialized in their small parts.

So it became possible to make much more complicated clothing at speed for the mass market, and people have come to assume it always has to be that way to get a good fit. Noooo. That's just what the trade does and it creates home sewing patterns copying the industrial ones. You don't have to.

Before then, simplicity was much more common. There was beautiful finishing and decorative stitching, but often the basic architecture was pretty pared down.

Sonya practices this in her own designing and teaching, knitting and sewing lovely simple garments for mix and match outfits she wears with joy. Her own patterns are simple and accessible.

You certainly need some stitching expertise which comes with practice, but you don't need a fifty part pattern to get there.

Anyway, this is where we are this morning. And the nice part about designing for yourself  is that you don't have to have all the decisions made before you embark. 

This is how I approach practically everything in life, so no surprise hearing that here. I don't need to decide whether it will open or not until I've got the main seams closed.

And that's going to happen next.