In anticipation of summer...my Butterick B5711 blouse

For the Fearless February sew-along, I picked a button-up (or is that button-down?) blouse pattern. In the two years that I have been sewing, I haven't made a single thing that has buttons going down the center. I never thought myself capable of matching up a buttonhole to a button well enough that it doesn't pucker up at all the wrong places. The other reason for tackling this project; this is going to be my stepping stone towards making jackets.

I decided to make View A, which has the flutter sleeves. This would have looked really pretty in  Georgette or similar lighter fabric. But in my crisp cotton, this looked more like armor. I wanted to change this to puff sleeves, but didn't have enough fabric left over to cut the sleeves for View B. Solution: release tucks at the bottom of the sleeve! I copied this technique from a Jessica Howard dress I bought a couple of months back. And it all ties in so well! The blouse has release tucks in the pattern already. I am sooooooo happy I thought to do this.

Before

After

   

Deviations from pattern:
1. Changed the self-facing to appear on top. I felt having the button placket ( if that's the right word) folded to the inside made it look more dated.
2. And the sleeves ofcourse.


New technique tried on the garment:
1. FRENCH SEAMS!! (that is happy shouting :) )
      This is my first time completing an entire garment with french seams and I am in love with the way the garment looks on the inside. 

Burda Style 7293 skirt

This is my first time working with a Burda pattern and boy am I happy! Since I had heard from many sources about the amazing fit of Burda patterns, I decided to refrain from making any changes, which is also a first for me. I usually end up having to tweak at least a few things. Not with this one!

One place these instructions got the better of me was when attaching the skirt bottom to the yoke. The pattern talks about a placement line and a separate stitching line. After some fiddling around, I realized it really was as simple as placing the wrong side of the skirt bottom on top of right side of yoke with the top edge of the skirt bottom on the placement line.

Deviations from the pattern: 

1. The skirt in View B has a frayed edge along the yoke, but I'm not a fan of frayed edges and I also didn't think it would look good with this particular fabric. I decided to finish the edges of the yoke with a ribbon using Hong Kong finish. I really like how this turned out and will definitely work with this technique more often now. The only trouble spots were near the pleats where the ribbon tended to slip a bit over the multiple thickness of fabric.

2. Increased the length by an inch.

New technique tried on the garment:

1. Invisible hem using the invisible hem foot on my Brother sewing machine.

Can we call it a crazy Saturday already!

I bought this white chain stitch embroidery on white fabric to make Butterick B5711 (View A) blouse.

And as any good seamstress would, I put this in the washer to preshrink. But when has my life been this simple? Of the 8766 hours in a year, I happened to do this at the exact same hour when the water in my tap began running brown with rust because the city had just finished replacing meters on my street. Result?

I couldn't stop anguishing over the loss of  $30 fabric or repeating myself over and over again about how unbelievable this was. Really, what are the chances?!? It's mind boggling really. Okay, alright, I know, get over it already. After a little web search, I picked up Rit Color remover from Jo-Ann. And spent my Saturday stirring my brand new fabric in simmering water over the stove.

This is what it looks like now.

I am definitely surprised that the product worked. I wasn't so sure it would because Rit has a specific 'Rust remover' product that wasn't available at my local Joann's.

Anyway, I am not so sure it's back to how it looked in the store. Still considering if I should just cut my losses and buy new fabric.