Dressing gown for J

Made from jigsaw fleece bough at the HIC show.

A quote from the first time I used this pattern to make jimjams, "Simplicity 7045. Made Large size (should have made Medium but pattern is L-XL)" It's deja vu all over again! So ... the pattern was somewhat too wide, and I took out an inch from each shoulder seam. It could be a little more snug around the neck so I could have taken another 0.5-1" out down the back at the back of the neck, although maybe would need to put some back at the underarm, which would have been a rather more complicated adjustment. I added 5" in total to the length, 3 above the waist and 2 below. We positioned the waist loops and pockets according to personal preference of the victim. James wanted lots of wrap around, so I added an inch or two to the cross-over flap it at the front, and adjusted the other pieces (collar, facing) to work with this. I thought the sleeves were right, but that's because I misunderstood the construction which involved a quadruple thickness cuff at the bottom. So, they were a few inches short, but managed to work out a different style that can be folded up manually. The pattern says something like "easy" on it, but I think this is the largest thing I have ever made, which made for quite an interesting challenge. Fabric mustn't be stressed while sewing, and so checking that bits of it weren't caught under a chair, wrapped round a knee or stuck in a cat was quite important. Glad to have lovely large sewing machine for this project! 

The pattern seems very wasteful on fabric as each collar and facing is a single piece. I was using James' John Lewis dressing gown so I copied its pieced collar and lack of the upper facing around the shoulders. The fleece is actually a bit thinner and more drapey than I had expected (or perhaps with the whole garment hanging off the shoulders and neck they could do with some reinforcement), so I probably should have included the upper facing, but, like the collar, cut it in pieces.