Costume update, mine anyway...

Last night I got a chance to do some more work on the blouse for Simplicity 8855, and I almost have it finished. All I have left to do is put a buttonhole & button on each sleeve cuff, and hem the bottom of the blouse.

It is rather an interesting item. It has no armscyes like a typical blouse... it is sort of like the "rectangles and squares" shirts of the 19th century. But only slightly... there is still the curved cutout for the neckline, and the sleeves are curved on the bottom (longer on the seam edge than it is in the middle). The shoulder seam is very long, but it is gathered, and the sleeve itself is gathered only at the very top, a couple inches on each side of the shoulder seam. The sleeves are also very tightly gathered at the cuff... if my fabric had been any thicker (it is quilting calico) I wouldn't have been able to gather it all in. Doing the plackets around the neckline was interesting... the neck facing actually goes to the outside (I did View A, where there is not neck ruffle but there is lace trim around the edge of the neckline facing... my camera battery is dead right now and I can't find the charger, but I'll try to get a picture later).

I managed to get the vest pieces cut out this morning, before my kids woke up. I was going to make the vest from black twill (because that's what's shown on the pattern envelope), but I discovered the leftover green wool gabardine (that I made a riding habit from) matches the green in the plaid quite nicely (there is no black in the plaid at all) so I decided to use that instead. I didn't have enough of it left to do anything else with, anyway.

There is a 1" seam allowance on the sides of the vest, as it is to be a fitted vest, and fitted is done on the side seams. Interesting, I've never seen that on a Simplicity pattern. Now I'm wishing I'd finished my underbust corset, LOL. (I got over halfway done with it, and then realized the jean fabric I'd used has 2% lycra in it- blast! So it's stretchy, I have no idea how well it'll work).

The vest is going to be fun to make, though, because the instructions for it are worded very strangely. There are 3 layers- the fashion fabric, the lining, and "muslin" which seems to function as an interlining. (I don't know why they didn't just say to cut "interlining" out of muslin). When my camera is working, I'll have to take a photo so you can see how bizzare the instructions are... I had to read them through 3 times before they made sense, and when I finally understood what it said, I realized that the instructions could've been written much more simply, and much less confusing!

I said in a previous post that this pattern seems to have been re-released with a different number and envelope. Next time I'm at the store I'll have to look up the new pattern and see if the instructions have been simplified, just out of curioisity. I think a beginner sewist would be scared away by these directions! (Actually the blouse is a bit of a challenge anyway, more suited to an intermediate sewist).