Three New Blouses and Turquoise Shift Answers

Nothing special going on here with these three blouses, but I made them, so you get to see them.

Remember the cap sleeve dilemma?  I finally came up with a pattern I made myself, but I don't know if I will make it again.  It is a bit snug after taking the wings in underneath my arms. 

The hardest part of this blouse was the buttons.  I only had 4 dark blue buttons that matched this blouse.  ONE button has to go at the fullest part of the bust.  ONE has to go at the top.  The other two have to be equally spaced from those first two.  For this blouse, that just wasn't enough buttons.  I needed four.  I had already sewed and cut the buttonholes though. 

What to do?

What to do?

I started pulling out drawers all over the sewing room, and look what I found.

VINTAGE buttons to cover. 

I swear -- I used to wear my hair EXACTLY like that.  I have a picture of it somewhere here in the house, but I'm not in the mood to find it at the moment.

It wasn't opened yet when I found it, but I didn't take a pic until after I had opened it.  I hope it wasn't worth $500! 

The cap sleeve blouse now has SEVEN covered 7/8" buttons on it. 

They match so good, you can hardly see them!  I think they look nice. 

Fortunately, I don't go around with my arm up like this a lot because the sleeves feel a bit snug when I do this.  They do look a whole lot nicer under my arm than the first try, however.

This is SFD with a 41" bust.

After I made this, I drew a new SFD pattern for a 40" bust since mine can't seem to decide WHAT it measures from one minute to the next.

THEN I made this red blouse. 

WHAT is with all the leaves???  I haven't a clue.  I must have been in a "leaf stage" when I bought these fabrics.  I really like both of them though.

Again, SFD, sleeveless with a v-neck and regular bust dart.

I love this red one.  I will be making more of these!  The v-neck is finished with a facing.  You have to cut DEEP into the V in both the facing and the top.

REINFORCE with very small stitches BEFORE you cut.  Ask me how I know???

 

And another one.  This is the Louise Cutting "Anything But Ordinary" that I changed as follows: 

I made the front a V-neck.  I moved the tab and the button to the FRONT of the blouse so you don't have to contort your body to fasten the button. 

It STILL pulls up in the front.  I think I'm going to sew fishing weights on the front of my Louise Cutting blouses, and maybe THEN they will stay down in the front!

I LOVE this fabric.  Wish I had some more of it.

The plan is to wear this blouse with my Louise Cutting red pants.  Remember them?

And finally is the turquoise shift.

This is for a reader who asked me what I did to the SFD pattern to make this shift.

Actually, I didn't do much at all to it.  I'm so glad I pulled this out of my closet to photograph it because it was hanging in the closet with all the orange washable marker marks all over it. 

I had never washed it after sewing it! 

You can tell how much I have been wearing it.

 

In the back,

I put a long zipper

and the waist darts. 

I lowered the neckline.

On the side, I put a french dart.

Therefore, there is no bust dart

and no waist dart in the front. 

The french dart

replaces those.

On the front, I drew a boatneck curve at the neckline with my SFD Designing Stylus, because that is my favorite neckline if I can figure out how to keep my bra straps covered.

You can see it is also the "hip curve".

I imagine my pictures are going to fly like popcorn all over this page.  That happens with Blogger.  Hope you can figure it all out.  Time to clean up my messy sewing room and start supper.

It looks like a giant shedding thread monster wandered all around in here and while he was at it, he threw tracing paper and commercial paterns all over the floor!  That was probably his pet snake I threw out last week.

Hugs, Joy