Tag: blouse

To shop, or not to shop


Image © Zara

Yesterday I went shopping, and did not buy this silk blouse with hot air balloons and air ships all over it from Zara. I also did not buy two tops with skulls on them from H&M, and a pair of Thundercats Converse from Schuh.

I did buy four pairs of stripy over-the-knee socks, and a bright yellow skirt.

Yellow wool skirt

It’s calf length, 75% wool 25% nylon, fully lined, with pockets in the side seams. Smells a little bit of mothballs now I’ve ironed it (yes, believe it or not I did iron it before I took this picture – clearly not hard enough!), but that’s nothing that a little wash won’t fix. And it shows that somebody’s bothered to look after it. The label says “Yessica” which, if memory serves, is 1980s C&A. It cost a grand total of £6, from the Sue Ryder shop.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this skirt will sit in my wardrobe (along with the tweedy one I bought in May) and be relegated to “vaguely Steampunk dressing-up”. Which would be sad, as it’s a really lovely skirt, great quality, and with details that I really like.

So, why buy the skirt that won’t get worn, and not the blouse that will?

I’ve been trying very hard not to buy mass-produced things from chain stores this year. The biggest exception has been my ever-increasing collection of TM Lewin shirts, but I think I’ve got enough now to last me a good few years. (She says, having just looked at the website and seen a purple flowery one, and a blue one with birds… both reduced from £85 to £20… argh!)

So whilst the hot air balloon blouse is lovely, and silk, and would in fact look great with this yellow skirt… and the skull tops from H&M were just generally awesome (I’m still a sucker for anything with skulls on it)… and the Thundercats Converse were hilarious… they’re all mass-produced, fast fashion, and designed to be disposable. And I don’t want that from my clothes any more.

I’d always thought I wasn’t one to worry about what other people thought of my clothes (see: yellow coat, silly prints, bow ties, gold boots, pink hair, Being A Goth), but I think part of my reluctance to wear skirts like this and my tweedy one is the fear that people might look at me funny. I had a teacher at middle school (anyone remember Mrs Trubshaw?) who was widely ridiculed for wearing unusual clothes, including an a-line skirt with a forest design appliqued round the hem, which a) I would now kill for, and b) was probably actually quite fashionable in the mid 1980s. As kids, we were absolutely horrible to her, and I’m basically afraid of being treated the same way. Which is silly really, because if I coped with people shouting at me in the street when my hair was pink, I’m sure I can deal with a few sideways glances at a yellow skirt.

Perhaps one of my resolutions for 2013 should be to stop falling back into the comfortable trap of jeans and t-shirts, and start putting more effort into wearing the clothes that I really love.

Edwardian-ish Blouse

Edwardian-ish Blouse

I don’t think I showed you the finished blouse that I was making for Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers. It took much longer than I was expecting, because I ended up having to make all of the buttonholes by hand.

The body and collar of the blouse are from Simplicity 3623, with pintucks instead of gathering at the shoulders. The sleeves are from Simplicity 2207, and the buttons down the front were added by request.

I’m just waiting to find out whether the blouse is going to be okay for dancing – because of the shape of the sleeve heads, I might need to add a little gusset at the underarm to allow a better range of movement. Otherwise, I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out.

Pintucks and ruffles

Pinktucks and ruffles

This is just a little sneaky peek at something I’m working on at the moment. It’s a costume for Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers. I play recorder and concertina for them, and I’m helping out a friend who needs a new blouse.

We wear roughly Edwardian costumes, based on the working clothes worn in the countryside until about 1914. I’m putting this one together based on a Renaissance pattern, a steampunk-Victorian pattern, measurements taken from two existing blouses, and a bit of imagination!

Simplicity 2307

Simplicity 2307

This is Simplicity 2307, a brand new Project Runway pattern.
The fabric is a cute little goldfish print by Heather Ross, that I bought from Cia’s Palette a couple of years ago. It was a skirt, for a while.

I have to confess that I don’t always like Project Runway patterns. They tend to offer lots of variations, which I do like, but they seem to make things unnecessarily complicated, which I don’t.

Having said that, there are only two things that I struggled with a little bit on this one. The first was the pleats at the top of the sleeves. You have to make two little pleats and then overlap them at the top. This looks beautiful when you’ve done it, but the instructions on exactly what you needed to fold to where to make this happen didn’t seem very clear. The second was that by the time I’d interfaced both the collar and the facing there were six layers around the neck, which makes it a bit stiff. Next time I probably won’t stiffen the facing, and I’ll trim the seam allowances of the collar a bit more closely.

Despite the fiddly aspects of the pintucks and the pleats and the collar and the little tie belt at the back, this was actually a fairly straightforward pattern to put together though. You do have to be super accurate in your cutting and sewing though. Otherwise you’ll find little frustrations, such as the sleeve bands being a couple of millimetres too short, or the sleeve heads not fitting in quite right. This is definitely a precision piece.

The pattern doesn’t give a blouse length, but I was restricted by having such a small amount of cloth to play with. I ended up using every last inch of my fishy fabric – you have to promise not to notice that the fish are in fact swimming sideways around the sleeve bands!

Simplicity 5310

Simplicity 5310

This is Simplicity 5310, a blouse from 1972.

Skycarrots gave me the pattern a long time ago, and I’ve always liked the blouse, but my sewing machine hates making buttonholes. I’ve finally got around to making a version that doesn’t have buttons all the way up the front, and I’ll just put poppers on the collar and cuffs. Next I need to decide whether I’m going to make the super-long 1970s collar, or whether I’m going to make it a bit rounder or smaller.

I really like the basic shell of the blouse though, and I can’t wait to see what those enormous sleeves look like when they’re gathered into the cuffs!

Drafting a new blouse.

Blouse - step two.

Yesterday I drafted a pattern for a blouse, and made the toile on the left. The dressform is wearing my necklace so I can check that I’m putting the top button in the right place to show it off.

Today I worked out the pattern pieces for the facings, and made the blouse on the right. Apparently I was having a little difficulty with spatial awareness when I cut the pieces out, because I’ve ended up with the buttons on the wrong side. Oops…

I’m not entirely sure about the buttons on the collar, but in this case they serve a practical purpose. The interfacing I had available was a bit on the heavy side, so the collar sticks up more than I’d like. The buttons will serve to fix it in place, whilst looking decorative at the same time.

My next step is to draft a skirt pattern, and then it’ll be a dress!