I ended up settling on thin+smooth, thick+don’t care, thin+smooth sandwich \u2014 because that ended up being the cheapest option that cleared my requirements bar on the appearance side. However, the compromises had to be made and … well, we get to a few hard realities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- Having things look good on you when you’re 20 kilos over <\/em>your healthy weight is an uphill battle. True, 20 kilos won’t cause Serbia to give me a taxpayer-funded plane ticket to Austria<\/a>1<\/a><\/sup>Yes, I’m subjecting you to Eurovision references. What you gonna do about that?<\/span>, but the beer barrel still gets in the way of clothes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- This project is very likely beyond my skill level<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- one of the compromises was: the smooth fabric also wrinkles fast. <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
The first layer that got cut out was the bottom-most white layer of the robe. I decided to go for a super-loose fit first, and then tighten it from there as necessary (the #yolo pattern). I’ve had everything cut out and pinned together in about 3-4 hours. The result is not very satisfying, but it’s made from all three layers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stuff.tamius.net\/sacred-texts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/l4-pinout.webp-683x1024.webp\")
Yep, when my sister moved out, my mom turned her room into the sewing machine room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Besides the wrinkles, the fabric kinda folds and holds the way I want it to. But holy hell, this thing is heavy. That increase in AC is most definitely not <\/em>coming from dexterity. The increased weight is not a major problem for me, but the pins are having a major difficulty holding the entire robe together. I’ve had several pins fail so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another difficulty is actually pushing the pins through the fabric. While pins generally are able to penetrate through three layers (1 thick\/rough, 2 thin\/smooth), driving a pin through six (at places where two panels meet) is hard and sometimes even impossible without bending the pin. Turns out the smooth layer has a great stopping power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sewing machine, however, fortunately seems to have no issues penetrating through 6 layers. 12 layers seems doable as well, as long as sewing starts on a part of fabric that’s 6 layers thick:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stuff.tamius.net\/sacred-texts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/l4-pinout.webp_01-1024x965.webp\")
First seam went through 3 layers (2 thin\/smooth, 1 thick). Then, the fabric sandwich was folded to reach 6 layers, and then folded again to reach 12. This realistically covers pretty much all the thicknesses I expect to encounter along the way.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n This leaves us with one more problem \u2014 a problem that seems largely ignorable so far. The layers are held together only at the seams, which can be a little bit problematic. If three layers don’t all decide to fold in the same place, we run the risk of encountering unnecessary wrinkles. Can we fix that, and can we fix that without having our robe starting to bear resemblance to a gambeson?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Probably we could, but the time expense would be significant, and that’s not really good or \u2014 as the deadline drifts closer way too fast \u2014 not really in my interest. I yolo the pattern R&D, let Jesus take the pedal of my sewing machine and hope for the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somehow, my approach seems to work well enough, though the end result is still disappointing thanks to my inexperience, being about 20 kilos over what I should be, and me not doing anything to mitigate that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Post-R&D<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As is tradition, things that you pin out with pins are sometimes mildly different from what comes from under the sewing machine (yeah I know, skill issues and stuff), but it was … okay enough. Now, it’s time for doing the trim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other posts about Robe of Archmagi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n