OK, OK the blog posts since my return to the paid workforce has been, well, nothing short of appalling...and I totally forgive all those readers that have given up and since departed.
Whilst it is true that:
a) I've had little time to sort out how to fit my creative fix into my daily life, and
b) My contribution to
Big Girl's Blouse Month has been zip!
...there has been some sewing, albeit a few weeks back. The garment was made for my niece's wedding. When I bought a
carla zampatti tuxedo about 4 years ago I tried on a cute top nearly exactly like this. After spending
way too much on the suit I declined buying the top, but have always wanted to replicate it.
Butterick recently discontinued the pattern which threw me into a totally tizzy, but my local Lincraft, never known for its organisation had yet to return their discontinued patterns...lucky for me.
Here is why it works so well with the suit..
...and here it is how I wore it for most of the day in balmy
Queensland.
The details of the pattern and alterations made will appear on the side bar in the sewing pattern review...but as discussed in an earlier post details of what I learnt from sewing this garment will be in this post, namely:
- how to sew fine fabrics such as silk, using embroidery thread in the machine seemed to work really well
- that I should only pretreat the fabrics (ie washing/dry cleaning) exactly the same way as I will when the garment is complete
- that mixing and matching fabrics (I used silk satin and silk chiffon) and including unusual features such as gross grain ribbon and a mix of two different fabrics can turn a simple patterns into something more special.
So whilst this isn't a contribution for Big Girl's Blouse Month, I think that it works quite nicely on a big girl anyway.
with this pattern 
which I intend to start TOMORROW - I promise Miss!
