White peplum blouse Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

I still remember my promise to show you my first finished garment for the SG 2014 SWAP I'm just being my usual forget-to-blog self... But finally, without further ado:

The pattern is an oldie but goodie: Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein. As you can see in the technical drawing, the blouse is shaped with a triangular piece at the sides. The bottom third then flares out forming a peplum.

This is my second version of this blouse. My first version of this blouse fitted just fine but was ruined by a very, VERY poor choice of interfacing. Armed with this painful experience, I chose an embroidered cotton for this new version. The all-over embroidery gives the fabric quite a lot of body, so I skipped all interfacings this time. Avoiding the problem is also a way of resolving it, no?

The pattern calls for self lining, but that would just be silly with this fabric. Much too stiff and probably scratchy against the skin. Instead, my thrifty self immediately thought to re-use the lining of the first version. I looooved that soft cotton voile, so I'm very glad that I could rescue at least half of it to use it in this new version.

I have to tell you that at first I was worried that this re-use would break the rules of the SG 2014 SWAP. After all, the lining was already constructed some 10 years ago (eep!). But freeing the lining from the old blouse took soooo much time, removing all that topstitching and stitching and then carefully keeping all the clipped edges from fraying. Ugh! Let's just say more than once I thought to just forget it and make the lining from scratch. But I persevered and now I am very glad that I did. The soft voile is so silky against the body; My skin has no clue there is all that embroidery going on.

Just as with the first version, I shortened the peplum by a good 8cm to a length that I find more flattering on my pear body. Independent of how long you make the peplum however, this is definitely a blouse to wear with a high-waisted bottom since the peplum is shaped to open up beyond the lowest button. Yup, that's my belly button peeking through, sorry about that!

If I want to be really picky then I have to mention a mistake I made: because the blouse is not self-lined, at the neckline you can see the cotton voile just under the collar, when the revers open up a bit. I didn't think about this at all until the blouse was fully constructed. Sigh... so now it is just a feature. No-one else will notice, right?

My review of Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein is here at Pattern Review.

My fourth pencil skirt!

I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic. I buy and I buy and I never make anything. Here is to changing that.

Oh dear, I am falling behind again on my blog-writing! My mantra needs to include "must blog once per week!" Anyway...

First up in the what-I-sewed-this-summer series: a cobalt blue pencil skirt and a short sleeved white cotton blouse. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 by Laurel and blouse pattern Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

The skirt pattern is Burda 01-2009-128. This is one of their designer patterns, by a German company called Laurèl. I must admit I had never heard of this company before, but I loved the fit of this skirt so I went to the Laurel website and I did like a lot of what they make. This skirt pattern has a matching jacket, in raincoat style, which I also like a lot. Unfortunately I only had barely enough fabric for a skirt, so the full set will have to wait for another day. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 by Laurel

The skirt is relatively easy to sew: princess seams at front and back and a mock waist band. The curves of the mock waist band at front were a bit of a challenge because my fabric has a touch of lycra which invited waves any time I sewed at cross-grain.  But I practiced a bit on fabric scraps and I quickly improved my handling technique to minimize the waving. At the beginning I wondered if I would have to drop the topstitching, but my confidence grew with each seam and in the end I am very happy with how my topstitching came out. Of course most of the credit goes to my favorite new presser foot: a Bernina #10 edgestitch foot. A-mazing how easy it makes keeping your stitching parallel to the seam. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128

My review of skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 is at Pattern Review but here I have to show you a photo of the skirt where you can see the mock waistband and the buttons. These buttons are "left overs" from the ones that my son chose himself for his 3-year old sweater. They are vintage glass buttons and they are a bit too heavy for his tiny sweater, but I couldn't say no to him. He chose them himself and carried the button card in his own hand the entire trip home from the flea market, plus he got the color spot on, good eye! So I was very happy when the two left over buttons matched perfectly the color of my skirt.

Now on to the blouse pattern, it is Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein from 1997 and now OOP. Mine is view A which has a peplum and a wonderfully angled side piece that flatters the waist. But now I have to make a confession. This blouse is a major disaster! I began sewing it sometime ca. 2001 and as happens too often with me, I was 95% done and then I stopped. I had forgotten why I had stopped but it was fairly obvious when I pulled it out of the box: I made it in the softest cotton voile but underlined it with an iron-on underlining that is too heavy. This resulted in a texture closer to popelin and, worse yet, the underlining shows through the thin voile... argh! This is why they always say to test first on a scrap!!!

Blouse pattern Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

So yes, I thought quite a bit about whether to even bother finishing it. In the end I decided to do it just for the practice and to have the chance to model it for the blog, but it is not really wearable. I must say that I am quite happy for the extra practice, which I definitely needed. Since it is self-lined I topstitched all the edges which turned out very nice, even the sleeve hems and especially the peplum.  I must try to remember that self-lining blouses does provide a very nice finishing and is done (almost) all by machine!

As you can see in the photo the style of this blouse is quite flattering. I did shorten the peplum by a good 8cm as this is a more flattering length for my body shape. I am also happy to report that there is no gaping at all at the button closing and the flap underneath is wide enough for full modesty.
So despite my major screw-up, I loved the pattern and plan to make it again. My review of Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein is at Pattern Review.
Ah, glad to be back at blogging! Now I'll head over to see what you all have been busy with...