Blouse Progress

I love the collar of this blouse so I'm glad I decided to morph the Ottobre pieces with my PMB pieces and not just toss the whole Ottobre pattern. Of course since the blouse isn't done yet, it still needs a good pressing and the collar will look better than it does in this photo, but the shape is very nice on me. If I do say so myself. ;-) Collars give me fits in PMB. I never know what settings to use to get what I want without experimenting.



The fabric has been in my stash for a loooooong time. I really thought it was polyester. My first clue that it wasn't was that this fabric holds a crease like no one's business. Polyester doesn't do that. A burn test confirmed that it's not synthetic at all (no hard, melted, plastic-y remains). I believe it's rayon or mostly rayon, which could mean trouble in the future because I didn't pre-wash it thinking it was poly. But I have steamed and pressed the heck out of it along the way and everything is still lining up without any obvious shrinkage, so I'll keep my fingers crossed and the blouse out of the dryer.

Anyway … the fabric is very drapey. And the sleeves have gathered caps. Um, not by design, but I didn't test the Ottobre sleeve very well with my PMB armscye and it ended up with more cap length than I could gracefully ease. And hey, gathered sleeves are in so why not?

But then I tried it on and the sleeve caps immediately drooped. Rats! So I put on my Mother of Invention cap and fashioned (read: completely made up) a sleeve head out of some horsehair canvas I have in the interfacing stash. It does the trick perfectly, providing soft support so it doesn't look like I've got a Working Girl leftover or linebacker shoulders. Hopefully it will launder OK. (Note to self: test this before throwing blouse in washer.)



The blouse is done except for the bottom hem and buttons, but at least this time I already have buttons. They do really match the blouse but were uncooperative for photo/color matching today.



Here's a shot of the blouse with the skirt. Again, colors are off. The lighter color in the paisleys matches the skirt perfectly, although the skirt color isn't really this color either.



It's a very fitted blouse and does evoke the feminine look I was hoping for when I picked the original Ottobre pattern to begin with. I think it will be a great classic shape so I'll be keeping this morphed pattern. And one of these days I'll re-pad Zillie to match my curves, so my clothes don't hang like sacks on her in my photos.