A Simple Enough Blouse

“It’s not about your resources, it’s about your resourcefulness.”~Tony Robbins

Elizabeth tells me often that when people offer me things, I need to say no. My sewing room is full, and storing things in an orderly way is becoming more difficult. I strongly believe in organizing my things. It makes them easy to find, and therefore easier to use! If something is hiding away, it’s easy to forget about it.

So with all of that being said, I get a message from cousin Sheila. She has a bunch of vintage clothing that used to belong to her mother in law. Am I interested? I heard Elizabeth’s voice in my head. For a second it was like the old cartoons with a Good Elizabeth, and a Bad Elizabeth on my shoulder, each trying to persuade me. One of them won out, you can decide which one for yourself, and I told Sheila I would love to have the vintage clothes!

When they arrived I went through them. Some things can be salvaged, some things I consider inspiration, and some things I’m not sure yet. I might up cycle the fabric into another project.

This blouse was in the inspiration pile! It was a simple enough white blouse but I loved the details on the sleeves.

It had, however, been cut up one side.

It had the bottom cut off of it, mismatched buttons and a few stains that I couldn’t get out.

I might remove the buttons, and use the non stained parts for scrap someday, but today it goes back into the box for consideration.

I loved the blouse so much. I also need to add that there were a couple of vintage skirts in the box that fit me! I would need a neutral blouse to wear with them so I went through my patterns and found a pattern similar to the box blouse.

Although this pattern doesn’t have the beautiful sleeve detail as the other one, it does have a fun collar and fun cuffs on the long sleeve version. I jumped right in and went for View A.

Since Elizabeth is right about my having lots of things, I decided to make do with whatever fabric I had for this blouse. I had some muslin on hand so decided to go with that. I’m not so picky or snobby to not wear a muslin blouse. Typically, muslin is used to do mock ups on patterns before you use your good fabric on them. It’s like a practice run, plus if you need to make adjustments to the pattern you can do it with the muslin.

I have done mock ups in the past. I use Grandpa Bert’s never ending supply of WWII fabric. (See previous blog post, “Most Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational, Muppetational; This Is What I Call The Muppet Dress!!” and “The Big Day, Finally Here! Part Three and Also the Finale: Sydney’s Wedding!”).

I started cutting out the pattern on the muslin.

The collar had a weird dart by it, so I used my tracing wheel and tracing paper to mark it. Usually I just use chalk.

Pinning and sewing the bust darts and bottom pleats.

Marking the other side with chalk and using the old ruler I found in Grandma Doris’ sewing stuff. It’s my favorite to use and it works great. Grandma knew what she was doing!

The back of the blouse had a yoke and the back body needed to be gathered. Yikes!

Then the directions said to pin this whole facing to it. I was confused a little, but did as I was told!

Facing is all sewn on and ready to be trimmed.

I have never done a sleeve with a cuff before. Of course for my first attempt I pick a complicated one instead of a standard cuff!

Pinning on the continuous lap. Ok….whatever this is about.

Oh! It goes over the sleeve opening and makes a finished edge.

One cuff. Interfacing has been applied to one, and they are pinned right sides together.

Trim and flip and turn and iron. Now to pin it to the sleeve.

Sewn all together! Now to do everything all over again but on the other sleeve!

Button hole time!

The blouse was done and I was successful with the back and the cuffs! Taking pictures myself….not so much! Here’s the back detail.

Then here’s me, thinking I could take pictures myself with a selfie stick and a phone that kept taking slightly blurry pictures! No one was home to tell me to straighten out the front! I didn’t want to bother anyone but decided to call for help.

With that, Kira was on her way!

She did a much better job! I love the cuffs on this shirt. They remind me of what people thought fashion would look like in the future. I felt very “Jetson’s” in the blouse.

Let us not forget about the skirt though! It is a vintage knit skirt that just needed some love and new elastic in the wairst!

And there was one in turquoise!

I love the muslin blouse and will wear it not only with the skirts but also jeans. I’m glad I said “Yes” to Sheila’s kind offer! I’m sure there will be more sews to come that are related to Sheila’s vintage gift.

So which Elizabeth won, the good or the bad? You can decide, but I don’t think Elizabeth thought this was a bad decision. The next time I’m offered something, who knows!

I would encourage everyone to make do with their resources. You might have more on hand than you think!

As for me, onto the next!