This is in the “angarkha” (say that fast three times) style of a South Asian Kurta. All it means is that the front closure is asymmetrical and overlapped in the front. 

This style of neck closure was common in ye olde days of the Mughal kings of India, and it is still commonly worn today, mostly by modern Indian and Pakistani women (I guess the men gave it up); mine is a bit modified and I will explain that in a future post. For now, here I am in today’s South Asian look, and still invoking the pear silhouette. Heh.

Fabric:  Kurta — cotton blend voile pulled out from the deep, dark corners of my stash.  Houston sewers, do you remember the long closed fabric store called The Golden Needle? This fabric was purchased there.  Pants fabric is a cotton/silk blend I was gifted, and is part of a “set” but it totally coordinates with my Persian print.

Patterns: Kurta – no pattern. You can type “kurta” in the search box above right, and it will pull up my posts on a kurta. The difference is that for this version I cut out two front panels so they could overlap.   Pants – heheheh. I used an elastic waist pajama pattern — KwikSew 3553.

Details:

1) the contrast neck facing is turned to the right side and stitched down with Bernina Stitch #26. The link will take you to a previous post about stitch #26. 2) the underlap is held in place by very small snaps. 3) the overlap has self-fabric ties at the top and halfway down. 4) the hem and side slits are faced with contrasting cotton/silk culled from the pants scraps.

Oh look. Mr. Prince is wearing the overlapped look in the print.

What I will do differently next time: 

1) move the side ties a little higher and more toward the center, 2) raise the lower ties position to be closer to the top ties – maybe to waist level – right now the lower tie is at thigh level, 3) raise snap positions on the inside layer, 4) use larger snaps or use ribbons for the inside layer, 5) make the sleeve/armhole unit narrower – I was purposely going for a very loose look in this one, 6) explore sewing the fronts together to eliminate all the tying and snapping, but still give a wrapped look. It’s exhausting to tie and snap together the layers in four different places each time I wear it.

Covid Hair: I’ve been coloring my hair for so long that this amount of gray is giving me a shock. But I’m owning my gray hair look – kinda like it.  One day, I will go back to my hair stylist so she can give me a good hair style without coloring. I’m tired of slapping chemicals on my scalp.  Besides, this month I’ll be completing my 70^th year on this earth, so might as well look the part.

Friends, I hope you are keeping well. Staying home is not that bad considering the possible alternative. Yikes.

Samina