Cream Marfy 1251 Blouse

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I finally buckled down and finished the blouse I've been fooling around on. It's Marfy 1251, the flounce blouse pattern, without the flounce or the sleeves. It's a little longer than the green version, and I must say, it's a very cool, comfortable summer blouse. As you can see, it's a bit roomy although it has some shaping, and in fact, I took it in a lot all around below the bust to the hem.

The fabric is silk with an embroidered windowpane design. I bought it several years ago off the $1/yard table at Wal-Mart. I knew it was going to find it's pattern match someday. As it turned out, I'm not sure this was the perfect match after all. I like it very much, and I like it with this style. It was easy to sew, so what's the problem? It was just impossible to match the pattern because it was not embroidered in a perfect grid pattern. It looks pretty good, but it's not perfect enough to match. The front's good enough I think, but the CB seam was not going to match, so I gave up and decided that's just one of the "perks" of using human-embroidered fabric rather than something done by machine. I'm sure this was done in India or somewhere and thus, like Madras plaid, it's got its own little peculiarities, but that just shows that it's hand done. That's my story anyway!


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I was afraid that buttons would be a problem, as I didn't want plain white. The fabric is more of a pearl or pale cream color, and I was thrilled to find these pale, pale pink vintage glass buttons in my button collection. I think they're perfect, and there were just the right number, so it must have been meant to be. There are weird reflections off the button onto the fabric in the photo or something, but there is no discoloration on the fabric in actuality.

I did hand work on the sleeve edges, turning twice and stitching by hand for a very thin, flexible finish, and serged and turned once at the hem and hand stitched. I was going to turn twice at the hem, but it was getting a bit thick, and I didn't want to take the chance of having it flip up, as many very narrow hems do. This seems to be staying down so far.


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I like the inverted-V shape on this version, whereas on the green one I wasn't so sure. This is a bit longer and I think that makes a difference.

You can see all the photos and a couple more HERE.