The Almost blouse

Here's the story of a blouse that has many "almosts" about it. It almost became my wedding outfit, it *almost* fits and I'm almost happy with it.

I had bought a remnant of this beautiful silk shantung from Joel&Sons Fabrics ( I can't recommend them enough - they have stunning fabrics and out-of-this-world customer service) around Christmas. It was destined to become a part of my wedding outfit, but I had yet to find a suitable pattern.

I almost purred when I took this silk out of its packaging.

Enter McCall's 3504. It has a beautiful draped bodice, so I decided to turn it into a blouse. I sewed up the muslin, made a few changes, everything seemed to be going smoothly.

I cut into the silk and into the cotton batiste for underlining. I hand-basted every piece of one fabric to another, then basted the seams together and again- everything was smooth and easy.

Then, after I machine stitched the main seems, something magical happened, but in a black magic sort of way; the fit was strange and bulky in one place, overfitted in next.
I gently ripped the seams (not a good idea, as the silk marked easily from the threads). I re-stitched everything with slight changes to the back bodice lenght and the overall fit was better...but still not good. The sleeves suddenly messed everything up (even though they were fine when done in muslin) and I decided to abandon them altogether.

But I knew another seam unpicking might ruin the fabric, so I went with it and hand finished the insides.

Renée is a kind and patient model.

The hand finishes are my favourite part of this blouse. It is fully underlined, seam allowances are overcasted by hand and catch stitched to the cotton underlining.  The side zipper is prick stitched.

The zipper

Neck insides

The lovely back neck finish was also slip stitched by hand and gives the effect of an incorporated bow.

My so-so satisfaction led to the change of the blouse's destiny and now it awaits some dinner outing.

Oh well. At least it gave me the opportunity to practice!