A blouse for Popeye's girl

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...!

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.

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!

My entry for the Pattern Review Fitted Blouse Contest

I was planning to make this blouse weeks ago but when I discovered there was a contest, my competitive edge got the better of me...

My mum had given me a bagful of mystery fabrics a while ago and in there was a really rich maroon coloured one which was always destined to be a top. I think it's cotton sateen because it has a slight sheen to it. It was a b*****d to wash though - I knew it would run as it's so dark so I hand washed it. It left pink streaks all around the edges of the bath!

The instructions were fairly straightforward for the most part except for the collar. Really badly written in my opinion. I initially thought it would be done a certain way by using the two cut pieces for the collar and sewing them right sides together then turning them right sides out but the instructions didn't seem to say that at all. They kept referring to the collar piece and the collar facing (which I thought meant neck facing for some reason, probably because they only mentioned the collar facing for this one step and didn't mention it in the layout etc). Anyway, eventually I did it my way and realised that my intuition had been right all along and I'd just got myself confused! I still didn't get part of it right as I wasn't left with a slit/hole to put the knot of the bow through but it didn't make a huge difference as it was easy enough to attach by hand using a few tacking stitches. It adds a really cute touch, no?

I had to increase the width of the back darts loads because it was too big, even though I cut the pattern according to the finished garment measurements. The original sleeves were huge too so I set them in with a massive seam allowance.

Back view - should have checked that the
collar was properly uncurled, oops!

Anyway, I'm happy with the blouse overall as it is perfect for work tucked into a skirt. I've entered it into the contest, voting opens on 2 April so if you think my entry is good, please vote for me!! I will put up a reminder nearer the time...

I think lack of sun has given me delusions of grandeur

Oh my word, it seems like it's been ages since I've posted... It's not because I'm not doing anything, I've been busying around like a bumbler (honest!) but it's just too cold and dark to take photos to prove that I'm sewing!

It's effin' freezing!

I'm working on a dress at the moment which is in need of some tweaks (it's the "top secret" project I talked about in the last post so no more info I'm afraid...) which means photos will be a while yet. I've just finished another New Look 6843 skirt, this time in corduroy (yes, I'm in love with this fabric!). Photos to come soon, maybe even tomorrow if I can get my arse in gear. Oh, and I bought the best sewing invention ever - an invisible zip foot - it's AMAZEBALLS! The zip for the corduroy skirt went in like a dream and you can't even see it. It's like it's invisible or something...

Life saver

I'm just about to start on a top for work - New Look 6808. The fabric is soaking as I type. Wonder if I can get the whole thing sewed up tomorrow and then wear it to work with the cord skirt on Monday? Hmm, ambitious.

There's been a whole lot of discussion on ye olde sewing blogs (notably didyoumakethat and kraftykat) about lack of sewjo recently due to the horrid winter weather we've been having. Yep, it definitely has an effect hasn't it? I'm sewing less during the weekdays and more at weekends when it's lighter. Mr Sabs and I have started running in the evenings after work to perk ourselves up a bit and get rid of the winter blues - we've done 20k this week. It's working a treat, except for the fact that I'm falling asleep by 9pm on the sofa every night!

And last but not least, I've done something crazy. I've gone and bought a vintage 1950s dress pattern. It was 99p on ebay so I had to, right? I mean, it would be rude not to.

Except, and this is the crazy part, it's unprinted. UNPRINTED.

Oh. My. God.

What have I got myself into? I can barely follow modern, printed, let's-spoonfeed-sabs-cos-she's-a-bit-slow patterns so how on earth am I going to cope with this? Well, I just read a helpful post over at Lucky Lucille about non printed patterns so that will be my starting point. I may just have to make it up as I go along! Please wish me luck. And sanity.