What am I working on?

The knock off top is on hold till next weekend. I made the lining and the fit is better, but now is clear that the drape is not as good as I thought. Patsijean kindly sent me some helpful information, and I will redraw the pattern.

Last week I went through my closet, took out all clothes and had a good look at them: which are old, out of style, not as I like them to be etc. The result was a lot of bags that go to goodwill, and a clear sight of what was left and what was missing. One thing was very clear: almost no blouses with short sleeves left, and there is no clear style of things I wear, nor a definite colour scheme. Too many "lonely items". A blouse that has no matching skirt any more, a skirt without matching top... I hope to define my colourscheme better next week, as I will go with a friend to a workshop to define your colours. I'm very curious to learn what those are, and very decided to make a better wardrobe, both in style and colour. Not within a month, mind you, but in the next year or so (you see, I learned from my failed commitment to the PR wardrobe contest, no commitment to a timeframe!)

Earlier this spring I bought fabric for a blouse, that could be combined with my tan or white linen trousers, a pink skirt (to be made) and a white skirt (in my closet, made by me). I decided to use Vogue 2634 for that, one of my few TNT patterns. It's the only pattern that I now make for the 4th time.

The fabric is a plaid, so obviously it took some time to cut. And after I cut the fabric I realised that after all my careful marking I might have to do some adjustment to align the plaid. Mostly I work with patterns without seam allowance, and I do not add those to the pattern. When I mark lines or notches on those patterns, I do mark the seamline. With Vogue of course the seam allowance is included, so to match accurately I  should have marked on the seamline, not the cutting line. It was not so bad, only in the shoulders I had to tweak a bit.   The plaid of course is a bit off at the side of the dart. you won't notice if you wear it.

 

	The blouse has a slit on the sides, and I wanted it to be finished neatly, and didn't want to serge the seams. A French seam was not possible because of the slit. I stitched the seam, pressed it open and folded the seam allowance as you would do for a hem. Then I topstiched the seam, up to the armhole. It's not a usual way of working, but it gave a nice result.