LBB: Little Black Blouse

I missed my goal deadline by a week, but here it is, the 8/2007 BWOF gathered, tie-front blouse.

Likes/dislikes
The front gathering is very flattering, it really accentuates and adds curviness at the waist.

The back doesn't fit me as well as the front; there's a little too much fabric happening in the upper back area. I didn't notice this with my muslin, but that's quite possibly due to the fact that I only eyeballed the SAs when cutting out the muslin. Still, it's good enough to wear to work.

Fabric
Woven cotton with a touch of lycra

Alterations/design changes
Sleeves: As I mentioned before, I altered the sleeves by morphing this blouse with another blouse's sleeve because I'm not into the dropped shoulder look. The end result is okay, but then again I'm terrible at setting in sleeves.

Collar: The instructions indicate that both the top and bottom collar pieces (collar and stand) should be interfaced. In another BWOF blouse I made up, the instructions said specifically "interface top collar only" and this pattern didn't say that. I did a bit of research about collar interfacing and found that usually just one side is interfaced although occasionally both are interfaced. So, I interfaced both top and bottom, which resulted in a very stiff collar. I think it looks okay, but if I were to make this again, I'd just interface the top collar pieces.

Conclusion
I like how the blouse looks with the sleeves rolled up, a little more casual, so I'm going to wear it that way. Overall this blouse was easy to sew, and given it's flattering fit, I'd certainly recommend it.

Mission: Last Minute Blouse - Unaccomplished...

Sad but true, I did not finished the BWOF blouse on Friday night. Here's how the evening went:

6:15 pm - Arrive at home, start making dinner

7:15 pm - Eat dinner, get sucked into beginning of The Wedding Crashers but pull myself away

7:45 pm - Converse with husband, determine we must be on road by 7:00 am in order to make it to Portland, OR, by 11:00 am for memorial service (3 hour drive under normal conditions, plus 1 hour leeway for any traffic 'surprises')

7:47 pm - Obsessively catch up on Bloglines posts and email

8:00 pm - Get working on blouse

11:30 pm - Concern and frustration set in that I still have the the following to do and I'm already very tired:
- set in second sleeve
- check sleeve length and sew cuffs on both sleeves
- make 8 buttonholes
- hand sew 8 buttons

11:31 pm - Run back to closet to look at my clothes again

11:33 - Notice small group of garments on floor - a few things I purchased at Zara in Las Vegas last month which I was saving to integrate into my wardrobe for fall, including a black blouse!

11:35 - Try on Zara blouse, ditch its fashiony statement belt per husband's advice, resulting in a smart, sensible look

11:37 - Close door on sewing room and vow to finish BWOF blouse very soon

Seriously, thank goodness I found the Zara blouse, or I would have needed a caffeine IV drip today. Instead, my usual 1 (large) cup of coffee sufficed.

We made it to Portland with time to spare this morning. The memorial service was for my husband's maternal grandfather; he was diagnosed with cancer last month and passed away last week at age 88. He is survived by his wife of 66(!) years (Tim's grandmother is the sweetest woman ever) and a very large family of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews, and many friends. It was a lovely service.

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I do want to send a big thanks to Linda for pointing out something very sneaky about BWOF blouse 8-2007-117 (she posted this in the comments for my previous post):

"Did you notice on the photo of the blouse from Burda that there is a pleat folded out around the neckline just under the collar? The sleeve pattern you show that goes with this blouse suggests that the blouse should have a dropped sleeve. And that explains why the shoulder seam is so wide. Funny how the the line drawing doesn't show the pleat around the neck. Instead it looks like a blouse with a high set-in sleeve.

I think that someone realized that the shirt would look better with the armhole seam up on the shoulder and not dropped. So they photographed it that way. But they didn't change the pattern."

Argh! Yes, now that you mention it, I do see it. It reminds me of how, sometimes you walk into a boutique and you see a really great shirt or dress on the mannequin, then you walk around to the back of the mannequin and you see the shirt/dress has a bunch of pins in it to make it look fitted on the mannequin. Talk about misleading...

Sewing under pressure

Sewing under pressure... time pressure, that is. Don't we all do that once in a while?

On Saturday I am attending a memorial service. I looked through my closet for something black that would be appropriate to wear. All my black stuff is either too casual (knits, starting to pill), or best saved for the next girls' night out. So, of course my next thought was to sew something. I chose blouse 117 from the August 2007 issue of Burda World of Fashion. It will look nice with my black gabardine pencil skirt, and it's already got 2 great reviews on Pattern Review.

original (08-2007-117) sleeve pattern piece, and my new sleeve pattern (from 09-2005-109)

I did whip up a muslin of the bodice and I was really impressed with how it fit - it's definitely form-fitting, but it's very flattering. The two reviews on PR noted that the shoulders were wide, and indeed the sleeve pattern is not very curvy, as is usually seen in dropped shoulders. I hate it when my shoulder seams are even bordering on too wide, so I decided to use another armscye and sleeve pattern. That turned out to be easier said than done, and we have yet to see how it turns out. I just grabbed an old issue of BWOF and found a blouse pattern that had the measurements of a "normal" shoulder width, then morphed them together. Cross your fingers!

Above are the two bodice fronts, one has the pleats pinned and the other is pre-pleating.

Well, you know what I am doing Friday night!