craftgrrl | Harry Potter School Robes (Reply)

Go Ravenclaw!

I made a school robe for the movie and book release this summer, and I followed myfortunatestars's directions for modifying the Simplicity pattern 5840 into a robe in the style of PoA. (The site is down right now, but it may come back up later.)

Some pics are a little blurry, but it's hard to focus on yourself when you're not standing in the shot yet. I used a nicely weighted linen (it was on sale!) for the black parts, and I used broadcloth for the blue part of the lining. The wand is Hermione's from the Noble Collection.

(Clicky for larger pics.)

	The robe is a little long, but it's really that I'm pretty short and the pattern was "one size fits most."
	The blue fabric turned out to match my tie from Wizard Ties perfectly. Unfortunately, the bottom of the right blue panel had to be excised and replaced when, eight stitches from completely attaching it to the rest of the lining, it touched my boyfriend's soldering iron (he was working on a project next to me), which burned a hole through it. You can see the seam if you look closely, a little above my knee. It was pretty upsetting.
	The hole. The iron got the black part of the lining, too, but it isn't as bad nor as noticeable, so I left that.
	Hood up. Also a close-up of the patch (book version from Patch Palace) and the closure. I went with an embroidered frog closure instead of he black buttons and bit of elastic, because I think it looks prettier. My tie and patch are from the book instead of the movie anyway, so I didn't feel like I had to stick to the movie version here either.
	I decided to put a wand pocket in my left sleeve. I didn't want it on the inside front because it would feel awkward if I sat down with the wand at my torso. Here, it's comfortable, easy to get to, and makes it look cool when I pull out the wand.

If I were to do it again, I'd take more measurements of myself and make sure the pattern pieces reflected them. Also, I'd use a lighter material, like the broadcloth, for the entire lining. As it was, I had a lot of the black linen fabric, so I used that, which makes it really heavy. Oh well, I'm still pretty proud of it.

X-posted to sew_hip.