Wearing what I make - Vogue 2544 Frankenblouse

I think I may have made a wearable garment out of my two unworn garments....  As I said earlier, I took the top half of Vogue 2544, used the White Stuff blouse as inspiration and redrafted the bottom half and used the fabric that had previously been Vogue 2152 to make a Frankenblouse - I redrafted the bottom with the help of the free Sorbetto top and this is what I've ended up with:

Not too bad.... it's not my favourite item of clothing but I feel very satisfied that I've managed to cull two items of clothing that have been lolling around not being worn and made them into something that is wearable. 

And to prove that I've worn it out of the house:

The floatiness of the bottom fabric compared to the top half means that the back pleat gets a bit lost - I also had to make a centre seam at the back and include a couple of previous seams into the front piece in order to make it work - but all in order I think it's OK. 

Unfortunately I can't enter this into the Indie Pattern Franken-Indie contest, as only one half of my FrankenBlouse is Indie, but ho hum c'est la vie.

Wearing what I make - redoing Vogue 2544

So, I've been having a play with the blouse I made using Vogue 2544 that was sitting around not being worn because it doesn't fit.

I opened up the side seams and sleeve seems and added a 9cm wide strip of a different fabric and also put a band around the bottom.

It's not right - it now fits across the bust OK but the hip/waist area isn't right.  I let out the seams around the hip area before I sewed on the bottom band and it just looks like a shambles and doesn't fit.

I'm quite enjoying the challenge of figuring this out though (at the moment anyway) and think I'm going to preserve the sleeves and collar area and do something different below approximately where the pin is in the photo above.

I've seen this blouse on the White Stuff website:

 And I'm thinking I could do something similar with my blouse - I think the pleat in the back and the more shaped sides will look better than the original boxiness.  Of course there won't be much of my original blouse left and I need to find a complementary fabric so this may take some time. 

Wish me luck!

Wearing what I make - Vogue 2544

I was reading some blogs this morning including this blog post by Jennifer Lauren about making the most of your handmade wardrobe.  It made me think about what I'd said in my last post about joining in Me Made May in 2015 and why I don't wear most of the things I've sewn in the past.

I made quite a lot of clothes during University and when I was living in the US, but then it slowed down in 2003 when I moved back to the UK - I'm definitely feeling the urge to get sewing clothes again at the moment (frustrated by the lack of sewing machine while it's still in being serviced) and this blog post made me really think about what I should be sewing and what I have been sewing in the past.

I had a quick trawl through my me made wardrobe and have taken a picture of (nearly) everything with the intention of going through each item, trying it on and figuring out why I don't wear it.

First up is this shirt:

It's Vogue pattern 2544 by designer Anne Klein.  I made view B in a size 10, which is described as:  Shirt, has collar and collar band.  French seams.  Fitted, short sleeves with mock bands.

 

I remember being pretty pleased with it when I made it, as I like the colour of the fabric and was pretty chuffed with the detail of the shirt and its finish with the French seams and button band.

Why don't I wear it?  Basically it's too small - I burst out of it in the front.  I think I'm going to have a go at the side seams and see if there's anything I can do to make it bigger, but as it's been made with French seams and I'm most likely to have cut off any seam allowance as part of making them I doubt there's much room for alterations.  Shame really.