Fleece Bath Robe

One of the items I've really needed in my wardrobe is a warm bathrobe.  The traditional material for such garments is terry cloth, like towels.  However, fleece is a relatively new material with lots of wonderful properties and that's what I decided to use.  I even had several yards of suitable fleece left over from a project that never quite happened.

Fleece is very readily available.  It seems like my small local JoAnn store has hundreds of bolts of fleece in lots of colors and patterns.  Fleece is also a very common item to see on sale, so it can be obtained at a very attractive price.  I never buy it at the full retail price.  Fleece is easy to work with.  it goes through the sewing machine beautifully, never binding.  It stretches just enough to make difficult seams easier.  It never ravels, so the seams do not need to be finished.  It's not relevant to this project, but fleece also embroiders well with the proper stabilizer.  Fleece absorbs very little water and dries quite quickly, which is an excellent property for the bathrobe project.

My chosen fabric for this project is a fun fleece print.  Why not make a bathrobe fun?  The frog and lily pads go well with the idea of bathing, generally a wet process.

My pattern for this project is Butterick 5537.  It specifically lists fleece as one of the possible fabric choices, not that I always go by the recommended list.  Of course, I did change the pattern some.  I tend to regard a pattern as more of a suggestion than a requirement.  First, I omitted the pockets.  I don't see the need for them on a bathrobe and they would tend to interrupt the print unless very carefully cut to match.  Second, I made the robe quite a bit shorter.  I'm not a tall person and if I'd made the robe the length specified, it would drag on the floor. 

 The sleeves also seemed excessively long, as shown by the comparison between the robe and shirt sleeves.  Part of the difference is that the ends of the robe sleeves are folded up and form the lining for a roll-up cuff.  However, there's no need for a cuff that comes to my elbow!

The pattern calls for fusible interfacing.  That's particular important on a fabric like fleece to give it some dimensional stability. Fortunately, there was just enough mid-weight fusible interfacing in my stash.  I'd never used fusible interfacing with fleece before and I wasn't 100% sure it would work.  I used scraps from the fleece and interfacing to test the idea before cutting the interfacing.It turns out that it works well and nothing bad happened to the fleece from being exposed to an iron just a bit hotter than recommended for 100% polyester.  (I used the wool setting to fuse the fleece.)

Most of the robe is straightforward to sew.  The only hard part is the neck/shoulder seam.  This is that obnoxious seam that looks mostly like a square, except that one of the pieces that goes into it is anything but.  Fortunately, with the slightly stretch fleece, this went better than other times I've encountered it.

Check back next Saturday for more fun with a sewing machine!