Pussy bow blouse - Ottobre 05-2015-13

My wardrobe needs more woven tops.  I made a ton of tees a while back but have very few dressier tops. I also do not have enough tops with full length sleeves.  I tend to favour 3/4 sleeves and while they look lovely, they don't work in the middle of a cold, windy winter.

So I went through my Ottobre mags and this is the one I found that appealed to me.  I like the pussy bow as it makes a nice change from a collar.  I also like the soft gathers from the front yoke and the sleeves with a bit of fullness for drama.

In the stash I found a piece of georgette (I think?). It would be a polyester but has a nice drape and weight.  The print is a bit darker than I normally go for but I really liked it when I saw it.  I bought it at East Coast fabrics last year.  The only issue with the busy print is that it is hard to see the details of the bow.

The only alteration I made to the pattern was that I did not make plackets and the narrow buttoned cuffs.  I thought it would be difficult to make the narrow cuff in this fabric so I decided to keep it simple and just sewed a casing at the sleeve-end and inserted narrow elastic.  I quite like the effect.

Pretty proud of the pattern matching across the blouse and the sleeves.

This photo of the shirt was taken before I had made the buttonholes.  I used very small black buttons to blend in with the shirt as I didn't want the buttons to detract from the bow.

The bad news was that my automatic buttonhole failed and would not complete the last return row and last bar tack.  <insert sad face>  So the shirt sat idling while my machine was in the shop (for far too long!)  As the length of the visit away lengthened, I asked a friend if I could use her machine to complete the buttonholes so did end up finishing it and have worn it weekly since then.

I did borrow a sewing machine during this time.  This sewing machine my mother bought in the early 60's.  We cleaned and oiled it and it was quite usable for straight stitch but I could not get the zigzag stitch to balance properly so I am thinking I might take it in for a service soon.  It is really a very fancy machine, which I did not realise when I learned to sew on it when I was 14.  It has all the cogs needed to make a tonne of different stitches and will wind a bobbin while you keep sewing!

I have downloaded the manual for this machine as the manual that my Mum gave me was for a slightly different model.  If I spend some time going through that I might get the stitch balance fixed.

I have a dream to make a frock for myself from a 60's pattern.  A 1960's machine and a 1960s pattern for this 1960's baby.  I like it.  

Ciao kittens, more soon...