Wild Stripes

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Here's another version of Vogue 2719. The fabric is a cotton stripe, meant for quilting. I fell in love with the colors and the unusual striping. It looks a little like the rainbow of colors you get off a grease puddle. One interesting thing was that no matter how hard I tried, I could not distinguish a right and wrong side. They aren't exactly alike, but one is not paler than the other, and I like both, and honestly, I couldn't really tell the difference, so I was just careful to make sure I ended up with a right and left sleeve and front, etc. While I managed that alright, I made a crazy mistake I've never made before. I laid out the fabric and the pattern and cut it out as if the selvedge were the fold. So, I have a tiny seam at CB. No problem, and this has tiny, tiny selvedges, so I didn't lose much width. I honestly didn't notice until I was ready to mark the darts on the back, and wondered why I had 2 pieces instead of 1. Ah well, I shouldn't cut at night.

This is basically the same as the Wisteria Blouse, except I cut the pattern on the princess lines, and so this is an actual princess seam pattern.

I've been thinking about it all day as I wore this, and I think the reason I'm somewhat uncomfortable with princess lines on myself is that I have kind of a hollow chest above the bust, and so there seems to be sort of a swooping effect to get from one contour to the other, and it's more obvious with a princess line. Also, I think it emphasizes the fact that I'm very short-waisted. So, it's okay, but I still don't think it's my favorite. My actual favorite dart position is a vertical dart with a horizontal dart. You would think that would be close enough to work out the same, but it seems to be easier to get the body-skimming fit I like than the princess line is.

Wisteria Blouse

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This is the blended pattern I ended up with from Burda WOF #105 5/2008 and Vogue 2719
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I first did a muslin of the basic blend, and it looked pretty good, but needed more room in the bust. Some of the bust ease in the Vogue was in the kimono sleeve, and with a fitted raglan, I lost all of that, and it was enough to make it pretty snug. So, I did an FBA and tried again. This time the tucks at the neck stood out in an extremely weird way, so I ditched them and turned them into a dart instead. This worked pretty well, but I thought as long as I was doing 2 vertical darts, I might as well let them meet, and so it has the effect of a princess seam, although the front was cut as one piece. I also ended up doing the part of the vertical dart below the waist as a straight tuck since after the FBA it was way too flared. I also ended up with a wider placket than I really needed, and I decided to just leave the closure slightly off-center. It's just a casual blouse, and I like the way the 'lapels' turn back. I used a ribbon instead of a facing to cover the collar seam, and I think it's kind of cute.

I bought this fabric at least last summer if not the summer before, and I just love the wisteria print. I got it at a local quilt shop called The Cosmic Cow. Here's a side view of the blouse.


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I'm nervously awaiting the return of my gorgeous cashmere from the cleaners where it's being steam pressed and shrunk. Tuesday after noon is my mantra.

I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post, Perfect Isn't Perfect Anymore. I'm so glad to know that I'm not just a cranky whiner. I knew most of you might agree with me but may not have seen the photos already, and so I'm really glad I posted. It was especially gratifying to find that several of you had come to the same conclusion I did independently. I agree that it might be a disconnect between the designer and the workroom, but it seems like a really big problem they're going to have to solve before the next show. I guess we'll all be watching, won't we?