Sweet Dreams in Seersucker (McCall’s 7832 part 2)

Can you believe this is the same pattern as my last dress? I can\’t! I mentioned in my last post that I really wanted to stretch the limits of this \”brunch coat\” pattern and I think I succeeded… even though both dresses are made from the same pattern and they\’re both blue, the overall look is so different!

Fabric Finders has the nicest seersucker I\’ve found and as I mentioned Monday I have made a million things with it. This may be my new favorite–I think I will wear it a ton this summer! This was my first time working with their terry and I was a little bit surprised that it was a stretch knit–I don\’t know why I assumed it would be woven (like a towel) but it\’s stable enough to use with the seersucker and wasn\’t hard to work with at all. It\’s also 100% cotton, so the combination of lightweight 100% cotton french terry and seersucker will be cool, soft, and wear well.

As far as fit, the only change I made from the navy dress was to eliminate the back shoulder darts, back waist darts on bodice and skirt, front skirt darts, and make the bodice waist darts a bit more narrow, with the overall effect leaving a bit of extra room in the waist as compared to the dress version. This is the best-fitting robe I\’ve ever owned and works perfectly over a slip or light nightgown, but if you\’re looking to use a vintage house coat pattern to make a robe to wear over your baggy pjs, you should probably size up. Obviously since it is designed to fit like a dress (see Monday\’s post), it\’s not a robe for slouching around in; even with waist darts minimized it\’s still fitted through the shoulders and bust. I think you can also see in these photos that the waistline, while perfectly acceptable for a robe, is really too low on me. For the navy dress version, I raised it by a whole inch and I think the fit on that dress is much improved just by that simple change.

In order to fully line this dress with the terrycloth, I left off all the facing pieces and cut two of everything else, one in terrycloth and one in seersucker. I basically constructed two dresses, one in terrycloth and one in seersucker, and then bagged the terrycloth lining. Then just cuff the sleeves and tie on a wrap belt for a cute summer robe. It was much easier than it seems! My favorite aspect of this robe version of the dress is the short sleeves, which you don\’t often find on a robe. They are perfect for summer and the little terrycloth cuffs look so nice with the collar, don\’t you agree? The texture is so cosy but since it\’s all cotton it\’s still cool for summer!

I now have 5 (I think) robes and it\’s time to destash. This is my only handmade one and it\’s definitely staying, but 5 robes is really too many! Do you wear robes or no? There are so many cute vintage robe patterns that I don\’t want to say I\’ll never make another but a girl really only needs one or two, right?

xoxo,