Progress has been made on my BWOF project for January, but alas it's not quite complete. Actually, this seemingly simple blouse turned into a total mindbender puzzle for me. There is a pattern piece for a front band, of which you are supposed to cut two. That's normal, like most button-up shirts. Then there is a similar pattern piece that's shorter, labeled "right buttonhole band". What? And it has no numbers for matching like the patterns pieces usually do.
I'll spare you all of the silly ideas I had for this "right buttonhole band". Eventually, I took a close look at Berry's version of this blouse, and realized that there is a hidden button placket at the bottom of the front band. Thank you Berry, you saved my day! In retrospect, it seems so obvious...
The bottom half of the front band has a hidden button placket. In the picture above, I show the "right buttonhole band" inserted under the facing of the right front band. You topstitch the front band to secure it. Then you fold it over and tack the top and bottom behind the front band (not shown).
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In other news, I planning to participate in Pattern Review's Wardrobe Contest. To date, the most I have coordinated in my projects is one top and one bottom, so it will be interesting to see if I can stick with it! It's been fun, and even challenging, to develop a theme, colors, etc. This is what needs to be included this year:
- 4 tops
- 4 bottoms (all tops must coordinate with all bottoms)
- 1 dress or 1 jacket
- 1 accessory (bag, scarf, etc)
To develop my plan, I taped pictures of potential patterns to index cards. I also taped a swatch or a photo of the fabric I'm considering. This made it easy to mix and match tops and bottoms and get an idea for what they might look like together. I've also been taking these cards to some fabric stores to find candidates for coordinating fabric. When I have a proper storyboard put together, I'll post that of course.
