Towards the end of last year, I bought some organic cotton dyed naturally to an olive colour. Unfortunately it faded to a sand colour after washing (something I was warned about by the company at the time of purchase - they say it's "only for the creative and adventurous soul"). I used most of the fabric for another (yet to be blogged about) project but still had over a metre left. What to do, what to do? I didn't want a sand anything really. So I dyed it olive with some Dylon...
I've been wanting to try my hand at a button back blouse for a while. I think they're cute. Plus, cotton will be great for my upcoming holiday in Kenya. Oh, did I mention I'm going on safari?!
I was planning to use the Sorbetto pattern but after looking at it again, I decided it was a bit too boxy so I turned to NL6808, partly inspired by Amy of Almond Rock who made a fabulous one with some bird fabric. I do admit to stalking her blog post for a while as I was so jealous...!
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| My Mini helper... |
I made a couple of changes to the pattern. No collar for one and I extended the shoulders out to give an impression of cap sleeves rather than putting actual sleeve pieces in. Although they seem to have turned into short sleeves rather than cap ones!
To make the button placket, I extended the centre fold of the back pattern piece by about 3 or 4 inches and cut the entire back piece into two along this line. I then folded the edges over three times making sure the the width of the placket would be big enough for my buttons. I found a link to a great tutorial via Adrienne of stitchingontheedge who recently made a button back Scout tshirt.
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| Look how neat I got the placket! |
Can someone tell me why one edge of the buttonhole has way fewer stitches by the way? I tried every single setting on my machine and I could not for the life of me get it to look any different!
Anyway, very pleased with the final result - it looks great with trousers or a skirt and will come in handy for my holiday... and I'm finally getting the hang of modifying patterns to make different garments!
It looks great on you! No idea why the buttonhole would do that...maybe a quirk of your machine? Enjoy Kenya. I was there for work a few years back and it was beautiful! I hope you'll share some photos from your trip!
ReplyDeleteI can't figure it out either! Yep, planning to take lots of photos - hubby said he might buy a camera specially... which means I get to use it for the blog afterwards instead of my iPhone!
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