Silhouette 575 Blouses and My Life

Well, wonders never cease (as my Mother always says)!  I missed a day posting to my blog and the world didn't come to an end and Hell didn't freeze over!  I realize that I have a MAJOR problem here -- worrying that anyone could possibly care that I don't post to my blog -- but that is the way my brain works.  It is like a "job" to me now even though it is one I enjoy.

So yesterday went by rather uneventfully except that Phylly lost her packet of buttons at Olive Garden the day we ate with Heath as our waiter.  She brought a baggie of buttons for me because I left all mine at home -- 150 miles away -- and she had the same ones I had for the project I was working on.  We really wanted to go back and have him wait on us again and see if he happened to find Phylly's buttons, but we didn't.  Phylly says they are only buttons, for heaven's sake.  BUT, it would have been a good excuse for two old women to ask for the handsome movie star guy to be our waiter TWO days in a row.

Kirk -- the guy that was going to fix the shower floor yesterday -- did his usual act of not showing up on time and not calling, so I texted him and told him to come another day when he could show up on time.  I explained that I have a life, and it isn't sitting around all day WAITING for handymen to show up.  I told him if he didn't show up or call, that he better not count on my "showing up" either.  He managed to get here right on time this morning.  OHHHHHHHHHH, and the shower floor looks so nice.  I'll take a pic of it when he finishes grouting and sealing it.

Jerry and our kitties have headed back South to our home in Southern Oklahoma.  I have to stay to babysit Kirk and then to go finish my MIL's house.  I don't care, as long as I can sew and see Phylly. 

I am sitting here typing this post in my giant amoeba blouse that I fished out of the trash can yesterday.  I decided it didn't look that bad after all, so I am finishing it.  I finished the second one in blue yesterday.  Neither one looks like the pattern anymore, but ........  I'm excited that I KNOW how to CHANGE a pattern if I don't like it.  Not too long ago that task would have TERRIFIED me!

                                                         

It is many hours later now, and I'm sitting in my pj's.  I've had my dinner all alone while watching some guy tear up a restaurant and remodel it on the Food Network.  I talked to Jerry awhile ago, and he was actually FISHING in our pond.  I just LOVE it when he does that.  It was his life's dream to have that pond, and he hardly ever has a spare minute to enjoy it.  When we were first married, and he worked as a Pharmacist for someone else, he used to find bass ponds to go to.  He actually had nights and weekends off then.  He got thrown out of so many farm ponds in those days.  I used to feel so sorry for him.  He would always say, "SOMEDAY, I am going to have MY OWN bass pond that nobody can throw me out of!"  Now, he has not only one, but two.  He certainly deserves them. 

For the sewing enthusiasts that read my blog, I will show you the pictures of MY VERSION of Silhouette 575 by Peggy Sagers. 

The neckline on my blouses is different because I just can't stand collars.  I thought this one would be tiny enough it wouldn't bug me, but it did.  It rubbed under my chin/neck when I was sitting at my computer, and I felt like something was crawling down my shirt.  I know............ NUTS!  True though.  I have VERY sensitive skin.  I can have a single 1/4 inch piece of hair (from cutting my own hair) in my bra, and it feels like a nail.  I'm sure I am the only person on earth who has lifted up my blouse, turned my bra cup inside out, and rolled a sticky tape roller over it to remove one tiny hair.  YES!, it's true.  My husband has watched me do this many times, and he has not divorced me or had me committed ----- yet!  I hate when it happens in the car and I have to cover up with a jacket or a blanket to do it. 

Okay.  Here are my two new tops. 

This is the blue/black/grey one that started out with a collar (on the left) that didn't look like the pattern picture.

Then I changed it to look like the pattern picture (on the right).

Then I took the collar off and made the neckline look like all my other blouses.  The sleeves are big and fluffy, and I'm not crazy about that, but I left them that way for this blouse.

I also shortened the hem quite a bit because I think long blouses make me look shorter and fatter than I already am.

Here is the revised crazy AMOEBA pink one that I threw in the trash a few days ago and then fished out today:

I left the neck up high but just took the collar off.  I don't like it much, but what diff when I don't like the amoebas anyway.  I changed the sleeves on this one with my favorite fix for too-big sleeves -- a pleat:

I don't suppose anyone in the general public will notice the crazy black amoebas swimming all over my blouse.  I would notice them on someone else, because I'm just weird that way.

AND, here is Phylly's blouse with the collars on it.  She isn't weird about stuff tickling her chin like I am -- actually, she is isn't weird like me in a LOT of ways!  She wasn't finished with the hems and buttons, but you can see how pretty it is.  She wore this to work today but I forgot to DEMAND that she send me a picture of it on

her.

  





I wanted to show my friend, Rebecca, how I finish the sleeves BEFORE I put them in the blouse, so I took a few pics of that.  You can ONLY DO THIS if you know the length you want them before you sew them into your blouse.  I like mine short.  The only sleeve "law" I know of is that your sleeve hem is not suppose to be at your bust point level.  I think I may have broken that law, but I don't care.  I hate my sleeves swallowing up my elbows.

First:  I press the hem allowance up -- in this case, 1 1/4".

Second:  I serge the edge of it.

Third:  I put the gather/ease stitch in from notch-to-notch.

Fourth:  I sew the underarm seams together.  (I serge all my seams after sewing them to trim and finish them.)

Fifth:  I put the sleeves in the blouse.

Sixth:  I serge all around the armhole seams to finish and trim them.

Here's a picture of the sleeves before and after I sewed the hems in:

I want to share with newbies -- and not-so-newbies (I just learned it last year) one other thing -- and I've talked about it before, but it bears repeating -- Steam-A-Seam 2 for hems.  Works especially great on knits.  I used it for this hem because it was very narrow.  It would have moved all over the place if I hadn't pressed it with SAS 2 first to hold it down.  It comes 1/4" and 1/2".  I have tons of it!