Star Wars Bathrobes

My sister has three kids. Joy... No, they're really nice kids, I was just never one for having any myself so we always joke around that she had one for me so my mom is happy at least ;) However, even though I dont want kids, I get to be the cool auntie :) Nothing wrong with that! Hihi... My sister has a girl and twin boys who were born about a week before Christmas (yes all three of them!) so the present thing is even more difficult. They're slowly getting to the teenage stage of life, so all those lovely baby tutorials are a little wasted on me. But that doesnt mean that I didnt come up with some of the coolest presents this year :) I was quite adament that I didnt want to spend too much money (still being frugal after all), didnt want to send toys yet again, and I wanted something really cool that they would also be able to use. And I didnt want my sister to send me a wishlist, I wanted a surprise. That's a lot to ask right? Oh yes... The whole sister-not-knowing thing didnt go down that well as I have no clue how to shop for boys so there was the first dilemma already. We managed to come up with something that was affordable and practicle, only missing the cool factor. We came up with: BATHROBES! Winter is coming and what is better than coming out of the shower in a lovely comfy bathrobe to lounge around on the sofa with?

Problem: my usual shop doesnt have the same sizing as the continental EU. So I had to call my sister who gave me sizes. Guess what? The size in question didnt exist! Honestly... so we decided a size up (always better than a size down really except when dieting). THEN they only had ONE of the bathrobe I wanted. Since they're twins, I really needed two of them. This particular bathrobe was dark blue and very soft and the others were fleece and had print. Well, I wasnt going to wait a few weeks for the delivery so I had to make a decision. I spotted some fleece robes with black/white camouflage print. Not bad I thought, I can surely do something with that. So here it goes:

The original bathrobe. Nothing special really, but comfy and warm :)

First I had to take off the massive age label that they put inside the back of it. But in the end that only took a few minutes. I like that the tying up thingy is actually attached to the back, I always lose mine LOL

Remember my post from yesterday with the tease?

Enter Star Wars fabric.

And some more SW fabric. A few years ago, I made a few SW pillows for some friends and this fabric has been lying around ever since. I got this fabric on eBay via a really lovely seller in the US called 'tabberone', but I dont think she's trading anymore :( I just thought it looked way too cool to throw away. Time to start using it...

I had read so many of your blog posts about appliques and really wanted to try it. So I dashed off to the shop and actually found some Wonderweb. The tutorial paper that came with was TINY! Yes I'm not kidding, it's like 5x5cm or so, really small. So I found this very handy tutorial that I can highly recommend.

So with my Wonderweb and my iron, and my SW fabric, I got to work. And work, and work... I didnt end up using wonderweb on everything as it was a lot more hassle that I thought it would be, but as my sister loves to use her washing machine, I had to make sure it was all safe and secure. Also, the first few attempts failed miserably so it was a good thing that I'd bought extra ;)

Ready for the results?? Luckily I agreed with my sister which one of the boys would get which character as I did want to theme it a bit. We agreed on a Yoda and a Darth Vader. Kind of good vs evil which was fun to do.

Each bathrobe got a large character print on the back. Darth Vader in red...

Yoda in green (and blue for the alliance)

Then I had to think, what to do next? I didnt have too much fabric and I didnt want to overdo it either...

Each robe has the Star Wars logo on the left-hand pocket...

...and General Grievous on the right-hand pocket.

Both pocket patches had to be sewn by hand as I thought it would take more time to take the pocket off the robe, machine sew the patch on and sew the pocket back. In the end it still looks good though.

Since the boys are twins, I wanted them to have the same bathrobe, but each robe has its own theme and small differences in the borders etc.

I wanted to add something to sleeves as well, so I placed Darth Vader on the sleeve of the Darth Vader robe...

...and fighting Jedi's on the sleeve of the Yoda robe.

The Yoda robe now has a border that is sewn around the collar. That way, no matter if my nephew wears the collar up or down, you can still see the border.

The Darth Vader robe has the same fabric but the border is on the sleeves...

...and on the bottom hem.

The Yoda robe just has a blue ribbon hemmed to the sleeves to create the border there.

Are you ready for the final result? Here it comes!

The Darth Vader Robe:

As you can see, I added a red ribbon as an addition to the neckline hem (wow is that even English, I cant think anymore...) which you'll only see when the hood is down like it is now. Nevertheless, I didnt want to overdo it on the one. Oh, and in case you think of Rocky when you see this picture, just imagine my nephew in it with his head in a towel!

The Yoda robe (front only since the back is only Yoda as seen in the picture somewhere up here):


I think all in all the camouflage print works quite well... Obviously I havent heard their thoughts on it yet, but I can hear yours! What do you think? IRL they look better as my photo-taking-skill are awful (hopefully only today!) and please ignore the mess in the background of the pics btw.

It was a lot of work (well, I spent about a day on both which is quite alright really) and some things are a little crooked, but I like them and I hope my nephews will do too! All is cost me were bathrobes (very good price if you know where to look) and some wonderweb :) Now I just hope the Royal Mail doesnt lose them...