shifting projects and fabric around, Burda July 124 kimono coming up

Because of our family medical issues and various distractions, I bombed/failed/epically let down the Vintage SewAlong gang. However, in waiting to get back to the sewing room, I played around with the velvet I'd dyed for that project and realized that three layers of velvet meant it was too thick to tie and drape properly in the Adele Simpson Vogue design I'd chosen without looking like I'd grown a huge royal blue barnacle on my lower tum.
 I've decided to order much slinkier crepe de chine for the Vintage dress, and meanwhile use the blue velvet and matching silk lining for the Burda kimono design, above. I've always been a sucker for kimono dressing, and years ago made two Vogue kimonos from a now-discontinued pattern, I am also the happy recipient of an authentic antique Japanese kimono from friends in Japan which I've worn for years when entertaining at home. I adore the kimono CyberDaze sewed for herself recently, too, because it signaled to me that the world of sewing people much cooler than myself was giving the green light to kimonos, which really haven't been "in" since Noel Coward and cigarette holders held sway.
One of the quirks of my protagonist in the Handover Mysteries, the journalist Claire Raymond, is that she collects antique kimonos and Chinese dressing gowns for relaxing away from the newsroom. That's one of the great things about writing fiction: your imaginary world is streaks ahead of your terrestrial limitations, especially when it comes to wardrobe, lovers and happy endings.