How did I forget this, it was hard work!

I made this robe for my husband for the winter of 2010.  My mother in law, who passed away last year, was a wonderful seamstress, knitter, crocheter, quilter etc, etc, etc.  You name it, she made it.  She had made him a robe years ago which he loved.  It was made from terry toweling and it just plain wore out.  I patched it a few times but if finally gave up the goat.

I didn't want to make one with terry toweling because it frays so much.  We looked at fabric and I wanted to use fleece as it sews so nicely and doesn't fray.  He didn't like any of the patterns on the fleece fabric. We thought we would try another store but as we were walking out there were some throws on sale for $5 each.  'That's what I want my robe made of"  he declared

Its like a fleece but had a pile and a big pattern to try and match.

We bought four of them and they sat at home for a while while I pondered on them.  I had found a pattern which was very similar to his old one so one day I decided to get at it.

Guess what though, it frayed.....and terribly!  It made a huge mess cutting it out in the spare room where I have my sewing machine and now my much loved knitting machine. Being a trooper though I soldiered on and got it cut out and managed to match the fronts and backs to each other and the sleeves to each other.  The only thing that didn't match was the band that went all around the edge which was impossible to match because of the angles of the neck edge.

I had to make french seams for everything as I don't have an over-locker but it all worked out well.  My machine struggled with the thickness sometimes but I just hand sewed anything that was too thick to go through the machine.

The fabric although thick is very soft so the thick seams aren't a problem.

So here it is. I hope this one lasts as long as his last one because I wouldn't relish making another one, not with that fabric anyway.  I think with just ordinary fleece it would be quite simple though.