My ass does not hang out of it. Score.

Wouldn't you like to know that amidst all the gleeful staycation drinking, I actually took a moment and sewed a thing.

For me.

That's not a part of a sew-a-long or anything.

Not even the sew-a-long that I allegedly host with Kelli but have been delinquent in posting photos for this time around even though I totally made another In Car Trash Bag because you know how I love self-promotion and also car cleaning.

Let's pretend we didn't hear that last part and just move on. I'll come back with that story later. And in the mean time I'll try to remember to take a photo of this triumph since the pattern was obviously SUPER GOOD and its author a SUPER GENIUS.

You know what I'm saying.

The other thing I sewed though...let's talk about that for a minute.

See, four years ago when Kelli and I got the wild hair to do our first sew along (four years really moves. Wow. I feel old or something.), we did so because we were inspired (or, rather Kelli was inspired and then inspired me - it's a cyclical thing) by Amy Butler's book, Institches, because it was the first non-barfy sewing book we'd come across in, well, ever.

I'm not going to go into the shortcomings of all the other books that had crossed my eyeballs before that one (and since), but let's say they weren't inspiring in any way that you'd want to rally a bunch of women around for a pleasant good time. A time involving matches and trash can bonfires, maybe, but that's not what I'm about when it comes to sewing.

And so we sewed from this book for a year and made a lot of nice things. One thing we did not make, however, and which spent a good amount of time that year repeatedly catching my eye, was the Kimono Bathrobe.

At least I think that's what it's called.

Which is a short-coming of all sewing books that are books rather than websites because when I want to link to a pattern or remember its proper name, I have to go hunt it down on my bookshelf which is never located in the same place that I'm located when I want to reference it. But we'll put aside my issues with actual books and the physical world for now.

When I realized that I was going to have a week off, at home, to do just whatever the hell I wanted, I decided it was time to finally make this robe because putting on my full-length terry cloth spa robe in the heat of summer is really not that pleasant.

So, on the whateverth day of vacation, I marched off to my favorite fabric store, fingered all the fabrics a million times and walked off with this yellow floral number that, on paper sounds awful, but in person seemed pretty OK for the job of a robe.

I really wanted more of this fabric, but it's nowhere to be found. And by nowhere I mean at the one fabric store I went to. Look, I have a severely short attention span and can't be driving hither and thither for fabric. I know you understand. But, if you happen to know who designs or has this fabric, you just let me know and I'll figure out a way to make another robe.

Yeah. The King Kong fabric wasn't really speaking to me.

I have a pattern, dontchaknow.

So, speaking of this pattern - have you heard me bitch about patterns lately? Probably. I do it a lot. Usually when the pattern is wrong, asks for too much fabric, too little fabric, forgets a crucial detail, requires a lot of quilting or basically sucks out loud.

Well, this pattern is one that needs no bitching whatsoever.

Seriously.

And this may be because I sewed this thing in the manner most befitting my lunatic mentality which is to say that I set aside two different sessions to complete it thereby sidestepping the terror that inevitably ensues when I attempt to cut out pattern pieces, cut out fabric and then sew something that requires more than 3 steps all in a single sitting.

People could die in this scenario and blood has been shed in previous situations is what I'm trying to tell you, so I guess I've learned a thing or two about good old crazy me, and that is that for a sewing project that requires all the steps above plus a few pages of diagrams and much measuring, I must allot myself two days and many cheesy movies on the teevee so that we all come out alive on the other end, and hopefully possessing a sewn object that isn't attached to one's self or left to burn on the lawn.

One day I ran Sleepless in Seattle in the background and cut out the pattern pieces and fabric. Fine.

The next day I ran Tombstone (I'll be your huckleberry. LOVE YOU, VAL.), Star Trek (the new one, obvi - Hot Spock) and something else I can't recall while I sewed up the robe to near perfection.

I say, "near", because I accidentally measured the back piece wrong (who me? suck with measuring or anything resembling math? NEVER.)(Always.) and when I went to piece it together, I realized that it was going to leave my ass hanging out, so I had to QUICK sew in an extension that brought it down to normal lengths.

And thank god I did because HELLO that would a been a lot of Finny cheek to be showing to the neighbors on garbage day. Not that I take out the garbage, but you know, I wander the streets in my robe and some people must think it's because I'm minding the trash.

After that one little fix though, it was totally done and now I love it.

I mean, I have to wash it still, because I am one of those lazy ass seamstresses who doesn't always (ever) wash their fabric before they sew with it, but I'm sure that whatever shrinkage occurs won't be nearly as terrifying as the scene that would have unfolded had I just cut the front panels to the length of the back panels and gone about my neighborhood tour as though my bits weren't 100% showing for everyone to see.

So, there you have it - this pattern, while requiring of much fabric (3 1/2 yards is a lot to me) and two days of sewing because I'm a loon, is absolutely solid and I have zero beef with the design, instruction, diagrams or final product.

Thank you, Amy. This robe is a gem.