Show and Tell

Update on the over blouse. I took it the Fashion Focus group meeting last week for Show and Tell and got teased quite a bit about making my own buttons.

But what should I get in my email a few days later? A newsletter from SewStylish magazine with a link to a story on …. Make your own buttons from polymer clay . It is good to know I am not alone in some of the things I do.

Thanks to Joy for pointing me to Karen's Blog. Karen made the blouse for her daughter and moved the gathers on the blouse up to the bust area. I went back and did the same. The wearablity issues went away. However, I really think the pattern was drafted as a tunic front with very little shaping and the gathers in the waist area are a style detail, not a bust dart rotation.

The center front placket is 2” wide. When the gathers are moved up to the same level as the bust point, the side view is a little strange. I don’t have any cleavage so the placket lays flat against my chest bone between the “girls”. I don’t know if this would work for a person whose bust is fuller in the center front. Most blouses with center front gathers have them on either side of a very narrow front band.



The Show and Tell part of the sewing guild meeting was wonderful this month. Since we were snowed in for two weekends, many attendees had been "sewing up a storm” to use a corny phrase, and had lots of garments to share. Show and tells are fun and inspiring. I always come away from them with a list of more patterns I "need” to buy or techniques I “need” to try. I took 2 other items to Show and Tell. One was a skirt. This fall, I purchased some thigh length sweaters to wear with skirts and pants, a la this inspiration photo. But I needed some help styling them. Many of the magazine photos showed a belt around the waist either over the sweater or on a skirt under the sweater; I suppose to make the eye read the silhouette as if it had a waist. Belts over sweaters look horrible on me, so I looked for a skirt pattern that could be worn with a belt under the sweater. Skirt #110 from the Aug 09 issue of Burda Style fit the criteria and was quick to make, The brown poly wool blend fabric with a cream and black metallic grids went perfectly with a long beige sweater.

My second item was a jacket. Made using OOP Vogue 2896, this Anne Klein (AK) jacket has notched collar, three-quarter length sleeves with turn back cuffs and inset carriers for a belt.


The inspiration for this was another fall purchase, a Tahari wool jacket with similar styling. I liked the fit and style so much I decided to make the pattern.

I thought a brown tweed jacket would be quite versatile given the many brown + color print blouses I have, or worn with solid brown bottoms and solid blue, green, cream or red tops. I found this brown/cream wool tweed at Hancock’s. It actually has some threads in blue and green.

This jacket is shown with a belt and really does require one to look good. There is no front overlap or fastening so the belt holds the jacket closed. There are faced slits in the dart legs and side seams so that the belt can pass underneath the jacket fabric there. The belt only shows at the center front and back. I didn’t like the self fabric belt tied casually, as in the pattern picture, so I used a store bought belt. While the AK jacket is OK, it did not come as close to the Tahari jacket as I would have liked because of 1. the non overlap front which shifts up and down even with a hook to hold the front edges together, 2.the fit in the torso is much looser, and 3. I like the look of the belt showing on the side waist of Tahari jacket (done with double princes seams with slits). But it does go with the skirt and the over blouse so I have a little mini wardrobe developing.