Kwiksew Fleece Bathrobe!

It can get a little cool in our house in winter. I'd been noticing that after bath time E was shivering up a storm. It was time to whip up this double-layered fleece bathrobe for him:

of course that's a paper towel tube... (!?)

The pattern here is KwikSew 3509 for toddlers and it comes in sizes 1T-4T. I've used KwikSew patterns quite a few times before and I think they do a nice job making simple, basic patterns. No frills, just easy, basic sewing. This bathrobe is a cinch to make. Honestly there's not much to say here because it's was kindof a no-brainer, but sometimes those are the best, y'know?

One reason I like Kwiksew in general is that they actually use what I consider to be "normal" sizing for kids; none of this S/M/L/XL stuff for toddlers and babies like Butterick and McCalls. What does that even mean? Am I the only person who finds this completely confounding? What is an XL baby, I'd like to know?

I also really like that the pattern pages are made of heavy paper so they're easy to trace and are single-sided so I can cut out the largest size and use it multiple times. I think the instructions are easier to follow than most commercial patterns (but I'm actually not sure if that's just how I perceive it because the overall quality of the packaging is so much higher than your standard tissue issue that I'm just biased off the bat).

It took me about an hour to cut out all the pieces and a few more hours to assemble it. The topstitching on the fleece adds a nice finish.

you get a little peek at those owl and pussycat PJs in this picture

I procured this fleece in person at Field's, a chain of fabric stores located in West Michigan. Fleece is something that I personally will probably never purchase online; you just can't really tell what you're getting unless you're there in person. After a few bad quality issues with JoAnn fleece, I also now avoid  craft superstore fleece at all costs. This leaves me with few options, so I was lucky that Mr Rae looked the other way when we had to stack so much fleece between the carseats that it was higher than the children after visiting relatives in West Michigan for Christmas. I figured it would add extra padding in case of a crash. Now I'm stocked until next year.

I noticed that Soulemama made a couple of bathrobes for her sons recently too, so it seems I'm not the only one with bathrobes on the brain. Has anyone else out there been making bathrobes? I think it's a great sewing project for boys!