Thursday, August 27, 2020

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...


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Rhapsody Dress Love

I am going to make a concerted effort to get into blogging again as I have been getting into clothes sewing again.  My clothes sewing was in the doldrums a bit as I put on a bunch of weight and was having trouble working out what worked for me now.  I have been dabbling with mixed results but think I am getting into the swing of it again.  So for now I am catching up and will apologise in advance as the photos mostly will be on my dressmaking dummy.  I plan to try and get more modelled shots later but did not want to have that delay me up from blogging about my makes.

In my last post I made the revised Rhapsody blouse which I still love (but haven't worn much as it has been too cold for it).  I wanted to put an entry into my QCWA Division's dressmaking contest (been a member for a bit over a year), so I thought the Rhapsody dress would be perfect because of all the great details - concealed yoke,  french seams, narrow binding, cuffs, etc.... It needed to be a complete outfit and I did not have a lot of time so decided a dress would be more time efficient than two seperate pieces.  I used a rayon I had bought from Spotlight recently when it was on sale.  The fabric is lovely with a sweet floral print but has a dark background so it is a bit hard to see all the details easily.  This is the finished product.

3/4 cuffed sleeves, No ties option


Front neckline binding


Back yoke with pleat

Oh, and I am super proud to say that I did win at Division level in the Smart Casual Garment section.

Sadly though because of Covid, the State level of competition will not be proceeding but it may get displayed at an upcoming showcase of the competitions we hold.  This dress has not been worn yet but I look forward to wearing it when the weather warms up.  

Ciao kittens, more makes real soon....