“Make It Right” Challenge! Finished!

I had posted earlier that I was working on a fabric challenge for Angela Walters, and now you can, too, with the Make It Right Challenge (hurry, there’s a giveaway for the fabric on her blog!)

Well, today I finished up my project.  It’s a version of the free kimono robe pattern by Susan Terpin over on Connecting Threads.  I made my version knee-length, though, and switched a few other details, which I will tell you about.  Anyway, here is the finished project:

The solid fabric is Cozumel from Art Gallery and the panel is Angela’s Right Angles from the Textures line.

Now, y’all know I am not a garment sewer, but a quilter.  I had originally thought of making a quilt (and still might… I’ll show you why in a bit) To make the long collar, I cut strips 1 1/2″ and sewed with a 1/4″ seam to make the fabric panel for the shawl collar.  I sewed these together at random, to make it look like it was improvisationally pieced of lots of little units.  I LOVE how it turned out.

But, I think I like how the sleeve turned out even more, since I cut 1″ strips and sewed them together with a 1/4″ seam for a finished 1/2″ width.  I think the look is even more “improvy” (but then, we all know I’m a sucker for very narrow sashes in my quilting, which, thanks to paper-piecing, the sashing is slightly smaller than 1/2″ on that quilt.  swoon.).  Here’s a pic of the unfinished sleeve panel laid out next to the collar unit.  You can see the difference I think.  You can also see that I used a birdseye cotton (super absorbent for after showers!) for the inner lining.

And now, in my heart of hearts, this is what I would like to do next: a quilt with the solids, using a 1/2″ sashing strip between the blocks of color.  This may have to happen, and I think you can see why:

GO and make something!  I wanna see!  Not to mention, Art Gallery is having a huge contest for it and the deadline is June 6.