Original Intent

There is a school of thinking in Constitutional Law that believes in original intent. That is they try to intuit what the founding fathers were actually thinking and then base their own legal rulings based on that original intent.

While I am not of the school of original intent when it comes to American law, sewing in the manner that I do, I do end up stumbling onto  the clothing equivalent of original intent.

 

 

About ten years ago my youngest attended school on Madison  Avenue. Yes, that Madison Avenue.  Once after a teacher conference, I walked uptown on Madison Avenue .  During my walk I noticed that a fancy lingerie store was having a giant sale. 

One of the life lessons I learned from my mother is that you should always check out a sale in a really fancy store. Listening to my mother paid off. On the $25 rack was a beautiful white spa robe. I needed a new bathrobe.

 

I took the robe to the cashier. The cashier became all flustered. The robe actually belonged on the $75 rack.  I followed another lesson I learned from my mother and stood quietly. The cashier apologized  to me and charged me $25.

 

It’s a great robe. I have probably worn it every day  for the past ten years.  The edges have become frayed with all of the washing and wearing. 

Making a robe is not difficult. I have been looking for a similar heavy weight birds eye weave fabric but to no avail.

As I have been mulling over what to do I was also thinking about traditional robes. I kept seeing in my minds eye illustrations of robes with contrasting collars and cuffs.

That is where original intent comes in. I realized that the trope of a robe with contrasting collars and cuffs comes out of thriftiness.  It isn’t just my fancy robe that has gotten frayed with use, but generations of bathrobes got frayed, and the old fashioned thrifty answer was contrasting edgings.

So here is my answer to my robe problem.

 

Red and white seersucker strips cut on the bias and joined together to make a binding.

I sewed the binding on with the diamond embroidery stitch.  For the sewing geeks among you I serged the binding onto the inside of the robe and then turned it to the outside. This red seersucker is left over from another project. I ran out of the seersucker. I will either get more for the sash or use other fabric in my stash for the sash and the ratty sleeve ends.

 

And some bonus shots of the view from the 59th street bridge from my trip home from the funeral.

 

Looking North.