Minky is Maddening and other updates

Spring starts tomorrow - yeah!  Can I pull out my shorts and summer dresses? Not yet. But I can think about spring/summer sewing.  Who am I kidding?  That is all I think about, sewing-wise.  Fall and winter are just about tolerable, made a little bit fun and interesting by my love of tailoring and wool fabrics.  Mix in a dollop of holiday sewing and I can make it until spring.  


I just noticed I have not posted for a month, what have I been up to, sewing-wise?  Lots of sewing, playing catch up on my blog reading, a little fabric shopping, even some closet cleaning.  Carolyn of Handmade by Carolyn was very kind to pass on a blog award to me, The Sunshine Award 2012, which is very nice and like a sunny day, made me very happy.  I will do a post with my answers to the questions very soon. 


As for the title of this post, Minky is Maddening, you bet it is.  I mean it's lovely for blankets, baby quilts and other cuddly items, but drives you crazy when sewing.  Lots of fluff everywhere.  About a year ago in a fabric shop in Honolulu (of all places - not the first you think of to buy warm and cozy fabrics) I was shopping and my mother was along for the excursion when she happened to notice the minky. She said "what is this?  I would love something in this" and so later I ordered some double faced aqua blue minky and gave it to her as a gift "to be sewn later."  Do any other sewers do that?  The old "here's the fabric, I will sew it for you sometime" trick?  Careful what you pledge, at least in my family, as I set myself up for the follow up question "when are you going to sew up that fabric you gave me?"
In any case - Mom just had successful knee surgery in early March which is partly why I have been busy (happily so) and I decided to make her minky bathrobe so she could wear it instead of stare at a big pile of fabric :)






I ordered a long separating zipper from ZipperStop and made a pattern from one of her existing robes. Not really fun to put in that zipper, the minky is very wriggly and I had to rip out and re-stitch a lot of sections to get it at least tolerably even.










Here is a peek at the inside and a full length view.   
                             




















For my mother the most important feature in any robe are the pockets - which I almost forgot.  Not the most beautiful sewing on the inside, but I made some bias binding from lining fabric I had and covered all the open seams.  I used the selvedge of the fabric in the center front so the zipper edge did not need finishing and was very pleased with myself to think of that before I cut out! 
So now mom has a very warm and slightly heavy (minky is kind of weighty to wear, we now realize) bathrobe that can be used as a snuggie style blanket when lounging in front of the TV.  And one more piece of fabric no longer in the queue.


Here is today's SunnyGal garden photo, some pink camellias. They live in a shady spot under the other huge red camellia that gets all the attention, time for pink's moment to shine.