Rayon Kimono Robe and a howto!

Soooo, Kaylee is making herself comfortable in my tummy — she’s over due by a few days! Turned out I was wrong guessing her gender AND her birthday. We really do hope she comes out soon, as we cant wait to see her, (and also its getting pretty tiring and painful trying to get out of bed 5 times every night!).

I’ve been trying to be more active and walking around the house a little more so that she can come earlier. One good way to get me to walking is sewing — I cut, pin, serger, and sew at different places, so there’s actually lots of walking! I had wanted another kimono robe for a while — I’ve been wearing my old polyester one a lot as it is comfortable, convenient, and provides enough coverage in case of visitors. A second robe would be great during breast feeding time as well as I can open it up easily for skin on skin time.

I just used my own “pattern”, and this time I just used a single long tie and tie it to itself. Here’s the measurements & instruction of my “pattern”, in case anyone’s interested in making quick kimono robes.

Sorry for the messiness, I drew it up quickly on our ipad and its hard to draw with a blunt tip. This kimono will require about 3 yards of wide 54/56″ material. Its okay to modify it a little, as I had made mine bigger than needed since rayon is so drapy and the size doesnt matter as much (and I havent prewashed my material, so I made it bigger in case it shrinks — I can always undo the hem to make it longer). Here is how I usually cut it out on my fabric (the reason why you need a 54/56 wide fabric for max efficiency):

Steps to make this kimono:

(note, I had sergered everything together for quick sewing, but if you are not sergering, use a seam allowance of 1/2 inches)

1. sew the two front pieces to the back

• Sew the 9 inch shoulder seams to eachother
• Sew the side seam to eachother, but leave about 10 inches from the shoulder seam down so that you can attach the sleeves

2. sew the sleeves:

• For each sleeve pieces: fold it with right side together, sew a U, leave 10 inches not sewn as sleeve hole on one side, and cuff on the other.

• With the 20 inches of opening, sew the sleeves onto the bodice

4. finish the edges besides the neckline

• Finish the cuff, and two vertical front edge however you like. I just folded my seams in twice and top stitched it.
• Hem the bottom of the robe to the height you like

5. Finish the neckline with tie:

• attach the ties together to make a 7″ X ~100″ (the length and thickness is really just your preference) long rectangle
• With the right side together, stitch along the long side of the tie with as little seam allowance as you think is strong enough, then turn the tie around.
• Iron the tie, but leave some room  between your stitching and the edge, preferably about half and inch, here’s the cross section of the tie, green line is the fabric, and red dot is where your stitching is. That room is where you will be encasing the raw edges of the neckline

• pin the tie onto neckline and sew with raw edge of neckline encased inside the tie. The extra tie is wrapped around your body and you can tie it with itself!

Here’s how my neckline looks like:

robe this around your body, you are done! Here’s the finishing “technical drawing”: