I finished my blouse last night, and I'll get my husband to take pictures of it on me soon. But for now, I thought I'd share my quickie alterations. And just to warn you ... if are sensitive to sloppy sewing, you might want to avert your eyes. Just this once, I reminded myself that this is a
wearable muslin and there's no point in trying to make it perfect. It won't be. I didn't even bother to match thread in some areas, because I was too lazy to wind a new bobbin! Which was liberating, in a way, but also sad because winding a bobbin with my Janome is quite easy.
The blouse is New Look 6678, view E-ish. And as is the norm for me in both patterns and store-bought tops, the underarm area was all gape-y. Naturally, I couldn't tell how much until I got the bias tape finish on the underarm. If I had thought for myself instead of blindly following the pattern instructions, I might have avoided this. I ended up having to pick it back off and re-do, which wasn't as bad as I feared, but I must say that I sewed it better the first time! I ended up pinching out an extra half-inch under each arm, and as you can see in the top picture, I just put in my new seam and ironed the excess to the side. When I make this again, I'll remove the extra from the pattern pieces.
My other problem area was another typical one for me: the back neckline. It stuck waaay out. And naturally, I already had the top edge finished -- you can't really tell a thing about how this will fit until you're pretty far along. My solution here was to make a big ol' pleat, and I actually like it. I'll keep it on future versions, rather than try to redraft the back bodice, but I'll shorten the neck band so that it won't have to be pleated as well. Which will allow me to avoid sewing a sloppy rectangle to keep the folds in place. I realize that there were probably nicer-looking ways to do this, Hand-stitching (yuck!) comes to mind. But ...
wearable muslin. This particular fix took no time at all. I was ready to wrap this up and jump into the next project, which will be a vintage dress. I think I have settled on which pattern to use, and I'm hoping to get started today.
I finished my blouse last night, and I'll get my husband to take pictures of it on me soon. But for now, I thought I'd share my quickie alterations. And just to warn you ... if are sensitive to sloppy sewing, you might want to avert your eyes. Just this once, I reminded myself that this is a wearable muslin and there's no point in trying to make it perfect. It won't be. I didn't even bother to match thread in some areas, because I was too lazy to wind a new bobbin! Which was liberating, in a way, but also sad because winding a bobbin with my Janome is quite easy.
The blouse is New Look 6678, view E-ish. And as is the norm for me in both patterns and store-bought tops, the underarm area was all gape-y. Naturally, I couldn't tell how much until I got the bias tape finish on the underarm. If I had thought for myself instead of blindly following the pattern instructions, I might have avoided this. I ended up having to pick it back off and re-do, which wasn't as bad as I feared, but I must say that I sewed it better the first time! I ended up pinching out an extra half-inch under each arm, and as you can see in the top picture, I just put in my new seam and ironed the excess to the side. When I make this again, I'll remove the extra from the pattern pieces.
My other problem area was another typical one for me: the back neckline. It stuck waaay out. And naturally, I already had the top edge finished -- you can't really tell a thing about how this will fit until you're pretty far along. My solution here was to make a big ol' pleat, and I actually like it. I'll keep it on future versions, rather than try to redraft the back bodice, but I'll shorten the neck band so that it won't have to be pleated as well. Which will allow me to avoid sewing a sloppy rectangle to keep the folds in place. I realize that there were probably nicer-looking ways to do this, Hand-stitching (yuck!) comes to mind. But ... wearable muslin. This particular fix took no time at all. I was ready to wrap this up and jump into the next project, which will be a vintage dress. I think I have settled on which pattern to use, and I'm hoping to get started today.
No comments:
Post a Comment