Doctorate Robe

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Once upon a time my friend Jennifer wrote me an email asking if I was able to make her brother (a professor of physics) a doctorate robe. Well, I didn't know about that but assuming there wasn't much I couldn't do, I told myself, "sure, I could figure it out". Come to find out there are no decent patterns out there for them and the reason he was wanting one made is because they're terribly expensive. If he was going to have one he was going to have it well made. He's one of those that if he has to spend money, he's getting the top of the line in whatever it may be. Geoffery brought to me a robe he'd borrowed from a friend, so that I could make a pattern from it. I only had a few days with the robe before I needed to give it back to Geoffery, so I took a bunch of pictures and did my best to make a pattern. Here are the pictures I took of the borrowed robe... 

The back

 Inside the yolk. It seemed that there was felt to keep the nice shape of the pleats.

 I measured how far apart the stitches were that held the pleats


 The Cuff.. It was velcro for closure and was serged right onto the sleeve. This part I knew for certain I could do better.


 The front... the zipper opened half way down the front of the floor length robe. And there was a large hook and eye at the neck. On the sleeves there were bands of velvet, three on each sleeve.



Here is my work process...

Remember, I had no pattern to go by at all, and no instructions whatsoever 


 This was the top of the sleeve. I marked all those blue lines with a pen and ruler.


 Sleeves, and body, before adding front...


 This was sort of a 'corner' where the sleeve met the back...if I ever did another, I'd find a way to eliminate the corners...
 Sleeve with bands on it.


 ~ Stitches ~


 Pleats


 The near impossible step of putting the body on the yolk! Gah!


 I was not overly pleased with how the 'corners' turned out


 



Finished Garment
My hubby modeled it for me.
































Back. 

In the end, everyone that saw it was really impressed but I felt it was less than 'perfect'. Still, it was a pretty cool project :-)

Comments

  1. Maria StahlApril 8, 2016 at 12:05 PM

    Those cartridge pleats are a bear, but you did a nice job. You're right, the corners are tough. I've seen some where they didn't take the pleats all the way to the corners, and other robes where they curved around the corner rather than an actual corner.

    I made myself a master's robe mostly to practice on because I want to make my husband's doctoral robe.

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  2. Maria StahlApril 8, 2016 at 12:11 PM

    P.S. The costumers for Game of Thrones love cartridge pleats. :) Take a close look at any pleated garment and you may see some. Prince Robin of the Eyrie has a little blue suit with cartridge pleats stitched on so they stand up on the outside of the yoke. They aren't stitched in underneath the yoke. Very interesting.

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